Frank Scarratt and his Derbyshire postcards

I'm a devotee of postcards. It's that simple, really. Whether a modern multi-view showing where a friend spent theirs summer holiday, a scene displaying a historically significant building, an "arty" photograph, or a "real photo" posed studio postcard portrait, of the type that feature strongly in my Derbyshire Studios portfolios, I have always enjoyed both sending and receiving them.

It is sad that, over the last decade or so, postcards have been overtaken by the universal ease of text messaging and email. As most of us know, it wasn't long ago that they were the quickest cheap method of letting your family back home know that you were okay and enjoying yourself, or perhaps merely maintaining a "between Christmas cards" correspondence with old friends.


128. Victoria Avenue, Borrowash
Sepia monochrome colour wash postcard, F.W. Scarratt, 1907
Although I have featured scenic postcards previously on Photo-Sleuth, the articles have dealt largely with the subjects of the images, rather than the postcards themselves and the publishers or photographers. In this article, I'd like to discuss a Derby man whose name has become synonymous with postcards of Derbyshire. F.W. Scarrat is the subject of Yesterday's Derby and its Districts, Rod Jewell's excellent book published in 1995 by Breedon Books, featuring a wide variety of examples from his own collection. While he is arguably less well known than W.W. Winter and Richard Keene, the prolific Scarratt's postcard views spanned a period of over three decades.


96. Kedleston Road, Showing St Aiden's Church, Derby
Colourized postcard, F.W. Scarratt, 1906
Although invented in the 1870s, picture postcards only started being produced in any appreciable numbers in the United Kingdom in the late 1890s, after they had been authorised by the Royal Mail in 1894. By the time Frank Scarratt (1876-1964), a Derby stationer, started publishing postcards in early 1906 from his shop at 114 Abbey Street, using scenic photographs that he had taken himself, he was entering a well established market. Initially at least, his scenic views were printed in Germany, which perhaps offered cheaper and/or technologically superior options than were available in England at the time.


London Road, Derby
Colourized postcard, Valentine's Series, Postmarked Oct 1905
The first couple of hundred of his colourized and monochrome colour wash scenes followed fairly closely the styles of those already being produced and sold in large numbers by long stablished firms such as James Valentine of Dundee (example shown above). His townscapes generally included a view of a busy urban or quieter suburban street bordered by shops, houses or other notable buildings, trees, electricty lines and lamp posts.


148. Kedleston Road from Five Lamps, Derby.
Colourised postcard (grey frame), F.W. Scarratt, 1907
A large proportion of postcards from this period include a tram somewhere in the fore, middle or background, often accompanied by several other forms of transport, as well as numerous pedestrians, and Scarratt's are no different. The focus on trams is unsurprising considering the rapid expansion of municipal electric tram systems during the 1890s and early 1900s. Several writers have commented on the fact that Frank also managed to include his bicycle within the frame of a good many of his views.


107. Mill Hill, Derby
Colourized postcard (Brown frame), F.W. Scarratt, 1907
In 1907 and 1908 he produced a variety of views with simple wide brown (wood grain finish), white or gray frames, which again followed the trends set by other publishers such as Valentine, AE Shaw (Blackburn), JG Cox (Nottingham), Boots' Pelham Series, and the Grenville and Clumber Series (by unknown publishers), all of whom marketed a variety of Derbyshire scenes. During those first few years he built up a significant portfolio, with about 100 views published in 1906, 52 in 1907, and 108 in 1908, bringing the total to an impressive 260 by the end of his third year in business.


197. Rolleston Hall, Rolleston-on-Dove
Colourized postcard (Scroll frame), F.W. Scarratt, 1908
Then in 1908 he started experimenting with a series of more ornate frames. The first of these appears to have been an oval-shaped scroll type surrounding the picture, and with a brown, wood-grain background, used in at least six different views.


293. Canal Bridge, Weston-on-Trent
Sepia postcard (Ornate frame), F.W. Scarratt, 1909
While the colourized scenes were quickly phased out, the lavishly decorated frames became elaborate and varied, and soon developed into his signature style.

Distribution of Scarratt postcard scenes, 1906-1910
Rings show distance from Derby, at 10 km intervals
As the distribution map above shows, he was also venturing some distance from Derby in search of subjects. The majority of his 400 odd views up to the end of 1910 were taken within 20 kilometres of his home town, but he did on occasion travel a little further afield to places of particular interest, such as Quorn (Leicestershire), Alton and Mayfield (Staffordshire) and Polesworth (Warwickshire). It is possible that these were in response to special commissions. The almost complete absence of views from east of the River Erewash, even well within the 20 kilometre radius from Derby, suggests to me that he faced some significant local competition in that direction, perhaps from a Nottingham-based publisher.


213. The Vicarage, Barton-under-Needwood
B/W postcard (Narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1908
Scarratt made a number of visits to the small village of Barton-under-Needwood, not far from Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire, possibly since he was born nearby and still had family living there. The example shown above uses the simple narrow white border style that he employed only intermittently early his career, but which from about 1914 onwards started to dominate his production.


375. Police Courts, Burton-upon-Trent
B/W postcard (Palette style), F.W. Scarratt, 1910
Introduced in 1910 a frame in the form of a painter's palette was perhaps designed to lend a more artistic air to the postcards. It was used in a number of different forms until 1913, so was obviously popular.


260. 3 Views of Derby
B/W postcard (3x-multiview), F.W. Scarratt, 1908
At the same time Scarratt published postcards in a number of multi-view formats. The early example shown above is slightly unusual, the more common types having four or five panels with rectangular and palette-shaped outlines (below).


380. 5 Views of Derby.
Sepia postcard (5x-multiview), F.W. Scarratt, 1910
The year 1911 brought a move from Abbey Street to Normanton Road; around the same time he opened a shop in the Market Hall, Derby, which quickly became the main trading premises.

Distribution of Scarratt postcard scenes, 1911-1915 (green)
Scarratt's peak production was between 1911 and 1914, when he photographed an average of roughly 140 new scenes each year, so that by the outbreak of the Great War he had almost a thousand in his catalogue. This equates to about a dozen each month, which was no mean feat for a sole operator. The pattern of locations visited during this pre-war period roughly followed that of his first five years, with a few notable additions (Swadlincote, Kegworth, Heanor and Dovedale) and omissions (Belper, Mayfield and Alton).


Postcards published by F.W. Scarratt & Co., 1906-1938
Data from Jewell (1995)
However, output in 1915 was cut by almost half, followed by a sharp decline in production during 1916 and 1917, no doubt due to privations of war and the ensuing reduced demand. The graph above shows the variation in numbers of designs published by the firm over its 33 year period of operation, but it should be emphasized that this may not be an accurate relection of the volume of postcards ordered or sold.


1020. Donington Hall and Entanglements.
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1915
During the war, his scenes on occasion show signs of the times, such as barbed wire "entanglements" around Donington Hall, then being used as a prisoner-of-war camp, and the War Cross in Barrow-upon-Soar (1916, not pictured).


1181. War Memorial, Market Place, Derby.
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1925
After the end of the war, Scarratt's postcard publishing ceased almost completely for a few years. Although he did produce a small number of cards in 1920, including a couple depicting War Memorials in Barton-under-Needwood and Burton-upon-Trent, it must have been a very lean period. When he started up again in 1924, he revisited many of his old haunts, but also started to document the changing cityscape, such as in his view of the new bus terminus at Cheapside, and a couple of the recently erected bronze and stone War Memorial in Derby's Market Place (shown above). His lavishly decorated frames and artist's palette surrounds, once a significant point of difference for Scarratt, were sadly no longer fashionable, and they were almost completely abandoned them in favour of the austere narrow white borders which had already become the norm amongst other postcard publishers.


1537. Donington Hall with Deer.
B/W postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1931
In the late 1920s and 1930s, a steady but much lower level output was maintained, with an average of about 40-50 new views a year. Although still visiting some of the regular locations - such as Donington Hall (shown above) where the entanglements were now replaced with peacefully grazing deer - he concentrated on the larger towns i.e. Derby, Burton-upon-Trent and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and tended not to travel so far afield as he had done previously. Judging by the fewer numbers of these later issues that are sold on eBay, I suspect that they may have been originally published in smaller batches than earlier issues.


1586. Derby in Flood, May 22nd, 1932 (Wardwick).
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1931
When Derby was inundated by floods on 22nd May 1932 Scarratt was quick to record the effect that it had on the city, and his views of a Trent bus nosing its way down a flooded Wardwick (shown above), and very soggy Sadler Gate are probably among his best known images.


762. Halfpenny Lane, Derby.
Sepia postcard (no border), F.W. Scarratt, 1913
The firm of F.W. Scarratt & Co. ceased publishing postcards in 1938, when Frank sold the stationers business to his son-in-law and retired to his home in Mickleover.

I hope you have enjoyed this introduction to Frank Scarratt's Derby postcards. Please visit the profile/gallery on my Derbyshire Photographers web site, where I have compiled a comprehensive catalogue with some further examples of his work. If you happen to have some Scarratt postcards which are not displayed, and would be interested in sharing them with a wider audience, I would be happy to receive some low to medium-resolution scans for inclusion. (Email)

Sepia Saturday 66: Drinking Friends

"I drink only to make my friends seem interesting." - Don Marquis
Some time ago, in The Boys' Day Out, I wrote about a postcard photo of a group of men, presumably drinking friends, including my great-grandfather Charles Vincent Payne (1868-1941), who called themselves the "Ding Dongs." They were gathered in the courtyard behind the Old Bell Hotel, Sadler Gate, Derby, probably in the late 1910s or 1920s.

This one, although a cabinet card, and somewhat earlier - I guess that it's from the mid- to late 1890s - is a very similar group portrait, again taken outside what appears to be a mock-Tudor style building. Perhaps it is also a pub, although none of these men are carrying tankards or bottles of beer. On the contrary, they look as if they have been out for a stroll, or perhaps watching a game of cricket, and are in dire need of a pint .. or two.

Charles Vincent, standing at far left, slightly aloof from the others and, as always, a dapper dresser, is arguably the smartest amongst what appears to me a pretty rum lot. What strikes me first is the array of headgear, from sporting style caps with both horizontal and vertical stripes, very high-crowned bowlers (or derbys, for those reading this in North America), light and dark pork-pie hats, a possible top hat (4th from right, at the back) and something I generally think of as a curate's hat, similar to the pork-pie, but with a more rounded top and a slightly upturned brim. Indeed the bearer of this last - seated in the middle row, third from left, and the only one of the group who has refused to answer the photographer's request to look at the birdie - may also have a clerical collar. There are far fewer beards than might have been the case a decade or two earlier, although the majority have moustaches.

But it is the chap to the right of the cleric (or to his left) who surprised me most. I had no idea that my great-grandfather knew Oliver Hardy! Okay, I'll admit that the more rotund of the famous duo would only have been five or six years old at the time, and besides, he was an American, so it can't be him. Perhaps readers will recognise someone else, though?


Charles Vincent and friends, c.1905-10
A decade later and they were venturing further afield. Well at least Charles Vincent was. He appears standing at 2nd from left, pipe in hand, in this somewhat more salubrious looking group arranged outside the ivy-covered front of what may be a country inn. I have no idea of the location, but I suspect it's somewhere in Derbyshire, if anyone recognises it, please leave a comment below or get in touch by email. I had in mind The Peacock Inn at Rowsley, a well known Peak District watering hole and starting point for walkers and fly-fishermen, but it's not there. All are bare-headed, although two can be observed holding hats, a homburg and a boater.


Charles Vincent and friends, c. late 1920s - early 1930s
A couple more decades on, the group of drinking buddies has been whittled down considerably, and they've graduated to fedoras, which are not too dissimilar to what my father referred to as his "Captain von Trapp hat". Sadly, among the many hundreds of images that came up in my "Google Image search," not one showed Christopher Plummer wearing said hat.

Actually this last group might better be termed an "Old Gits Luncheon Club" (thank you Alan). The location is unknown, but I think it's probably somewhere in the Derbyshire Dales - Matlock, Cromford, etc. - where CVP owned property.

This is my contribution to this week's Sepia Saturday, where you'll find many more old photographs of similar ilk to while away your weekend.

Spotlight Photos Ltd. – “Walking pictures” in Derby

I’ve been corresponding recently with Simon Robinson, who got in touch regarding an article that I wrote about sidewalk or street photographers in March last year.

Simon is working on a book devoted to “walking pictures,” a style or specialization of street photography which flourished from the 1920s until the 1950s, and then largely disappeared during the 1960s.  An introduction to the book project is provided at Easy on the Eye Books, as well as information about a potential museum exhibition at an East Coast resort.

Much of the collection that he has assembled was purchased at fairs, and identification of or background to the subjects has usually been lost.  He is therefore welcoming contributions of material which has something of a story attached for possible inclusion in the book.  Some of the images collected and donated so far are shared in Simon’s Flickr Photostream.

Charles Vincent Payne
Postcard format "walking picture" taken c.1932
Image © and collection of Brett Payne 

If you have any photographs in your collection that you think may be of interest, and that you would like to share, please do get in touch with Simon.  I have sent him several for consideration, some of which I posted in my previous article.  The unusual example illustrated above, however, is one of my great-grandfather Charles Vincent Payne (1868-1941) that I unearthed more recently from my family collection.

George Raymond Meadows (1914-2000)
with “Walkie” camera at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk
Image © and courtesy of Gail Godfrey

According to Paul Godfrey, who has an excellent web site devoted to seaside photography, this type of “walkie” was produced using converted Royal Navy 35mm cine cameras from the First World War, such as that being operated by his father-in-law George Meadows at Great Yarmouth, shown above, some time between 1946 and 1953.  In this case, the strip of three shots were printed in postcard format with the sprocket perforations showing, although Paul notes that other operators, such as Barker’s of Great Yarmouth, tended to mask them off.

Reverse of Postcard format "walking picture," c.1930s
Spotlight Photos Ltd. Regd. No. 728037
Image © and collection of Brett Payne 

The reverse shows that it was taken by Spotlight Photos Ltd.  A location is not given, but Simon directed me to two very similar images, also by Spotlight, from the Derby Museum & Art Gallery reproduced on Picture the Past, for which the locations are identified.  Both were taken in Derby, close to St. Peter’s Bridge, the point at which the Corn Market, Albert Street, St Peter’s Street and Victoria Street all meet.

 
“Mum in St Peter’s Street,” Derby (A) 
Taken by Spotlight Photos Ltd, July 1929
Image © Derby Museum & Art Gallery & courtesy of Picture the Past

Although captioned “Mum in St Peter’s Street,” the first was actually taken in the Corn Market, facing north, with the subject walking south towards the Victoria Street intersection.

Corn Market, from St Peter’s Bridge, Derby 
taken by W.W. Winter Ltd., c.1928
Image © W.W. Winter Ltd. 

This exact location can be accurately pinpointed since the jeweller’s shop of H. Samuels is clearly visible on the far right, also captured (below the clock) in this c.1928 view of the same street, taken by W.W. Winter Ltd.

 
Unidentified subjects, St Peter’s Street, Derby (B) 
Taken by Spotlight Photos Ltd
Image © Derby Museum & Art Gallery & courtesy of Picture the Past

The second example includes several people, but focuses on a man with hat, cane and plus-fours, and with an eye on the camera, striding purposefully southwards down St Peter’s Street, at the junction with Albert Street.  There is also a woman, possibly pregnant, carrying a shopping bag, waiting to cross the road and, in the background, a Trent bus going past.

Corn Market, from St Peter’s Bridge
by W.W. Winter Ltd., c.1925
Image © W.W. Winter Ltd. 

Again, it can be accurately located from a sign on a storefront, in this case Jefferson’s, a firm of drapers located on the corner of the Corn Market and Albert Street.  The c.1925 view by Winter shown above provides a view of Jefferson’s slightly to the left of that seen in the Spotlight walkie, and includes a view down the Corn Market, with H. Samuels’ trademark clock just visible in the background.

Junction of Corn Market, Albert Street, St. Peter’s Street & Victoria Street, Derby, with Spotlight photo locations (A & B)

The locations of the camera, buildings used for identification (green) and fields of view (pink) for these two photographs are shown on the street map above (clicking the image will bring up a larger view).

Charles Vincent Payne (C)
Detail of "walking picture," Victoria Street, Derby 
Image © and collection of Brett Payne

Nigel Aspdin, with his excellent knowledge of historical and present day Derby, didn’t take long to come up with a precise location for the walkie of my great-grandfather.  He is walking in a south-easterly direction along Victoria Street, on the pavement in front of the Post Office Hotel, the characteristic entrance to which can be seen on the right of both the walkie and the c.1926 view below by W.W. Winter Ltd.

  Victoria Street & Wardwick, Derby
by W.W. Winter Ltd., c.1926
Image © W.W. Winter Ltd. 

In the background of the walkie it is possible to make out the awnings and shop windows on the ground floor of the Refuge Assurance Company building, and behind that the Mechanics’ Institiute, both of which are on Wardwick and shown in the image above, although the former are slightly obscured by the tram shelter in the middle of Victoria Street.

  Flooded Wardwick and a Trent bus, Derby 
by F.W. Scarratt, 22 May 1932 

Careful examination of the walkie also shows two signboards protruding from the Mechanics’ Institute building, somewhere just above head height.  Nigel found an accurately dated postcard by Frank Scarratt recording the memorable effects of the May 1932 flooding in the Wardwick, and this, too, shows the protruding signboards which were not present in the earlier (c.1926) photo.

Junction of Wardwick & Victoria Street, Derby,
with Spotlight photo location (C) 

It is therefore possible to reconstruct the exact location of the walkie, using the Post Office Hotel, Refuge Assurance building and Mechanics’ Institute as markers.  Again, the area marked in pink is the approximate field of view seen in the photograph.

A view of Victoria Street & Wardwick, 18 July 2010
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin

A present day view of the same scene, as shown in this photograph by Nigel Aspdin, has the same buildings by and large, albeit with somewhat different shop fronts.

Spotlight Photo Ltd. walking photo locations in Derby
c.1928-1932

As the plan above demonstrates, all three of the Spotlight walkies were taken with 150 metres of each other.  Until we have a larger range of examples to work with, we can’t assume that the photographer only worked in this small area, but it was, and still is, a busy part of town.  The negative numbers are not very easy to decipher with certainty, but if my interpretation is correct, then they were taken in the order B (#3936), A (#7350), C(#9978).

If any readers have street photographs – or walking pictures – by Spotlight Studios Ltd., I would be keen to hear from you, particularly if the photos are identifiable as having been taken in Derby.

Acknowledgements

Low resolution images from the two volumes of The Winter’s Collection have been reproduced with the kind permission of W.W. Winter Ltd.  High quality reproductions of these and many other historic images are available from W.W. Winter Ltd.

Many thanks to Simon Robinson and Paul Godfrey for so readily sharing information about street photographers and material from their collections, and to Nigel Aspdin for his detective work and photography around Derby.

References

Anon (n.d.) Old Ordnance Survey Maps: Derby (North) 1899, Derbyshire Sheet 50.9 (orig. OS Sheet L.9), Newcastle upon Tyne: Alan Godfrey Maps.

Anon (n.d.) Old Ordnance Survey Maps: Derby (South) 1899, Derbyshire Sheet 50.13 (orig. OS Sheet L.13), Newcastle upon Tyne: Alan Godfrey Maps.

Craven, Maxwell (ed.) (1992) The Winter’s Collection of Derby, Derby: Breedon Books, 208pp.

Craven, Maxwell (ed.) (1996) The Winter’s Collection of Derby, Volume Two, Derby: Breedon Books, 192pp.

Scarratt, Francis William & Jewell, Rod (1995) Yesterday’s Derby and Its Districts: Through the Lens of F.W. Scarratt, Derby: Breedon Books, 208pp.

Don't argue, the lady has a gun!

The expressions on the faces of my teenage daughters when I mentioned last night that they had an Auntie Latifa was a little incredulous, for the most obvious of reasons. They'd only ever come across one Latifa before, on the television screen. Actually, it's not quite accurate - Latifa was a younger sister of their great-grandmother, and therefore their great-great aunt.


Latifa Middleton and Gamila Binnie,
standing next to the cannon Mons Meg,
Edinburgh Castle, Scotland, June-July 1932
Image © and courtesy of the extended Binnie family
When I asked them if they wanted to see a photograph of her, their eyes took on that "what-ev-a" expression so familiar to me when the topic of family history is raised, and the conversation moved on. However, a photograph of sisters Latifa and Gamila is particularly appropriate to display this week. Latifa's youngest daughter Madeleine and her husband Bill have just made their first, long planned "pilgrimage" (from California) to the country (and village) where Latifa and Gamila were born and grew up.

Courtesy of Find My Past's recent World Cup Widows temporary free access offer (presumably widowers and sundry atheists allowed too), I was able to discover more about the visits that my wife Gill's grandmother, Latifa and their sister Farida made to the United Kingdom in the 1920s and 1930s. The passenger lists that I've found give details of the family's inter-continental movements, providing a solid framework on which to arrange the anecdotal stories which have been handed down. I've written about this over at my other blog La Diaspora Continua.

According to the notes that I made from discussions with Gill's Aunt Maud when I scanned her collection of old photographs in 1998, the photograph was taken in Edinburgh in 1933. Maud's mother was then heavily pregnant with her fifth and last child John, who sadly died at the age of only two. Using the passenger lists mentioned earlier, I've been able to correct that date a little, and narrow the trip down to a six week period in June and July 1932.


Mons Meg and the view from Edinburgh Castle,
A 19th Century engraving
Image © and courtesy of Peter Stubbs & EdinPhoto
Having visited Edinburgh Castle with my sister on a rather dreary day in August 1987, I vaguely recall seeing cannons, but can't remember any details. However, Peter Stubbs on his excellent EdinPhoto web site has a Mons Meg page with several images of this particular enormous example reproduced from postcards from soon after the turn of the century, and a slightly older engraving (reproduced above).


Mons Meg, Edinburgh Castle, Scotland
Image by Yatton courtesy of Wikipedia Commons
More recent photographs, of which there are hundreds on Google images, show Mons Meg mounted on a very different wood and metal carriage, which is believed to approximate the original carriage construction. It appears that the mounting was changed some time between Latifa and Gamila's visit in the summer of 1932 and another snapshot of some children sitting on the cannon taken c. 1945.


Mons Meg, Edinburgh Castle, Scotland, c.1900-1910
Image by star1950 courtesy of East Lothian Museum
Photographs of such pilgrimages play an important part in the establishment of links between us and the lands of our forebears, as well as in the maintenance of contact with distant cousins. Sometimes they are the only tangible references that we have to pass on to our descendants. When we visited Lebanon in 1997 we took hundreds of photos, and I'm sure that Madeleine and Bill will share some of theirs too, in due course. I hope they will be appreciated by those generations to come, and will perhaps encourage our descendants to learn about the lands that shaped their ancestors, perhaps even to make their own pilgrimages.

I intend to discuss this aspect of photographs in our family collections in due course, and how they may be combined with other documentation to provide a better sense of connection with one's ancestors. I will also be illustrating several examples from my own family collection over at La Diaspora Continua.

References

Mons Meg by Wikipedia

Bombards: Mons Meg and Her Sisters (Royal Armouries Monograph)

Musing in Manhattan

Chrysler Building, New York City, 1931
Platinum print by Margaret Bourke-White
Image © Time-Life & courtesy of Gallery M
Motivated - perhaps inspired would be a better word - by Colleen Fitzpatrick's Forensic Genealogy mystery photo contest this week (Contest #226), I've been thinking art deco (or should that be Art Deco). I hope I'm not giving too much of the game away to say that I've always thought of New York's Chrysler Building as one of the more breathtakingly spectacular and visually effective examples, perhaps even the epitome, of this style of architecture. Although I've never visited New York, if I do one day, this will be one of the places that I'll be sure to visit, and not merely for the earthy marble walls and fittingly decorated lift doors on the ground floor.


Margaret Bourke-White, Chrysler Building, New York City, 1931
Unidentified photographer
Image © & courtesy of Time-Life Pictures
The photographer of the well known Chrysler Building image was photo-journalist extraordinaire Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971), whose autobiography (Portrait of Myself, published in 1963) featured a photograph (above) on its front cover showing her with camera in action astride one of the huge metallic gargoyle-like protruberances from the Chrysler Building. This photo, in turn, neatly echoes that which forms the subject of Colleen's photo contest.


Unidentified young woman, c. late 1910s to early 1920s
Mounted portrait by Sol. Young Studio
Image © & courtesy of Deena Mitsin
Quite by coincidence, this week I received an email from someone who had found my brief profile of photographer Sol. Young of New York, compiled some four years ago while researching a collection of photographs sent to me by Irene Savory. My correspondent wondered whether I might be able to tell her more about a mounted portrait photograph, illustrated above, of a young woman that she had discovered while cleaning out her attic. It's difficult for me to tell from her email whether the photograph has any family connection, so I can't really comment on the provenance. Merely from the hairstyle and clothing - and I'm not claiming any great expertise in dating fashions from this era - I estimate a rough date of perhaps the early 1920s. The young woman looks to me to be in her mid- to late twenties, which gives a birth date of around or just before the turn of the century.


Unidentified young man, c.1920s
Photo (107 x 151.5 mm) in embossed and printed pale brown card frame (153 x 229.5 mm) with oval aperture (92 x 133.5 mm), in embossed brown "leather-look" card folder (160 x 236 mm)
Image © & collection of Brett Payne, Courtesy of Irene Savory

Solomon Young was born in Kraków, Poland - then part of Galizien Kroenlande (Galicia Crownland), Austrian Bohemia - on 7 April 1865, son of Isaac L. Young and Lena Wachsmann. He emigrated to the United States in June 1882 (or 1883) at the age of 17, where he settled in New York and became a naturalised citizen some five years later on 1 August 1888. By this time several other members of his family, including his widowed mother and married sister, had also arrived in New York. He appears to have set up as a publisher and book seller from premises in Norfolk Street, in what is now the Lower East Side, until about 1891-1892.


Unidentified teenage girl, c.1905-1910
Mounted print (trimmed) by Sol. Young Studios, N.Y. Brooklyn, N.J.
Image © and courtesy of Etsy
Sol married Minnie Marx on Boxing Day 1892 in Manhattan, New York, and opened his first photographic premises near Union Square the following year. He continued to operate a studio at 17 Union Square West, with a home at 152 East 116th Street (East Harlem) until at least 1899. The trade directories list only his name, but since Sol and Minnie never had any children I presume that she too worked in the studio. One could easily imagine Minnie tending to customers at the front desk in the shop, while Sol. took portraits in the studio.


Unidentified young woman, Dated 1916
Mounted print (4" x 6") on matt (6¾" x 9¾") by Sol. Young
Image © and courtesy of ArtFire
The decade from 1900 until 1910 is something of a mystery, as no records have been found, although it is clear that Sol must have thrived and operated a successful photographic business partnership with his wife during this period. The 1910 Census shows him and Minnie living with his mother at Number 210, 107th Street (Riverside Park).


Augusta, c.1910-1915
Mounted print by Sol. Young, New York
Image © and courtesy of Rick Raven
Five years later, 1915 New York city directory listings show him with seven branches in New York, and a further studio in Bridgeport (Connecticut) which had been opened two years earlier.

Young Sol photo 40 W34th, 1807 Amsdm av, 1204 Bway 985 Lex av 142 W23d 109 W125th & 474 E Tremont av h600 W 116th
Young Sol, photographer, 129 Wall (Bridgeport, Conn.)

List of branch studios, c.1910-1915
Reverse of mounted print by Sol. Young, New York
Image © and courtesy of Rick Raven
However, a listing of branches on the reverse of a card mount from around 1910-1915 (shown above) suggests an even greater early expansion of the business, with at least twelve branches in existence across New York, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Jersey City and Newark by the time this portrait was taken. The device of a lion brandishing a sword was already well established as the studio's "mark" by this time.


George "Highpockets" Kelly, baseball player, c.1915-1920
Mounted print by Sol. Young Studios
Image © and courtesy of Vintage Ball
At about this time he and Minnie also moved their home to 600 West 116th Street, between Columbia University and the Hudson River. Sol and Minnie had been industrious, and it was obviously paying off. Between July and September 1914 they were able to take a long holiday with a trip to Europe, travelling to Germany, Austria and Holland, and presumably leaving their studios in the capable hands of their managers and employees.


Unidentified religious Jew, Brooklyn, c.1915-1920
Photograph by Sol. Young Studios
in Jews of Brooklyn by Ilana Abramovitch & Seán Galvin
Image © The Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
& courtesy of Google Books
It seems likely that they had intended to visit family in Krakow but their timing was not the best. The outbreak of war throughout Europe in late July was perhaps unexpected, in spite of the build up in tensions between the Eurpean nations for some years. News of the Russian attacks on East Prussia in late August (Battle of Tannenberg), although well to the north of Sol's homeland in Bohemia, seems likely to have rapidly precipitated an early homeward departure.


Maria Charlotta Svahn Belin (1872-1927)
Photograph by Sol. Young Studios, taken c. late 1910s
Image © Michael-Ann Belin & courtesy of Flickr
The swift German invasion through Belgium and into north-western France in late August and early September, culminating in the First Battle of the Marne, may have disrupted the plans for their journey home considerably. In the event, they must have travelled with some trepidation across the German state which was now at war on several fronts, vying for space on trains full of Imperial troops mobilising for the front. They departed from the neutral Dutch port of Rotterdam on 12 September 1914 aboard the S.S. Nieuw Amsterdam, and arrived back home in New York nine days later, somewhat relieved, I feel sure.



Some time between 1910 and 1915, they had moved their primary premises from Union Square to 40 West 34th Street and it appears to have remained the main branch for many years. On Friday 23 September 1921, however, Solomon Young died, aged only 56.

New York Times, 24 Sep 1921
Sol Young, founder of a chain of eighteen photographic studios, died yesterday at his home, 600 West 116th Street, at the age of 56. He was one of the pioneers in the pastel and crayon industry, opening his first studio in Union Square in 1893.

The brief newspaper obituary states that eighteen branches were operating at that time. Minnie Young was clearly quite capable because she continued to operate many of these branches for some years with a posse of managers and assistants. They must have earned her a decent income, as she employed a chauffeur in 1922 and made an extensive trip to mainland Europe in the summer of 1923, visiting Germany, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Switzerland and France. In March 1931 Minnie travelled abroad again, paying a brief visit to London, England.


Unidentified young girl
Photograph by Sol. Young Studios, taken c.1920s
Image © Michael-Ann Belin & courtesy of Flickr
The charming portrait of an - as yet - unidentified young girl (shown above) is, sadly, undated, although Michael-Ann Belin is currently investigating who it might be. I suspect that it was taken in the early to mid-1920s.


Design on card folder from Sol. Young Studios, taken c.1920s
Image © Michael-Ann Belin & courtesy of Flickr
The portrait was sold in an elaborately decorated printed and embossed card folder, of a type which became very popular in the United States during the post-Great War years, particularly the 1920s and early 1930s. The front of the folder has a new emblem, somewhat more stylish than Sol's original lion & sword logo. The reverse of the folder has a large number of studio premises listed. They were situated throughout New York (Bronx, Brooklyn, Rochester), New Jersey (Jersey City, Newark, Trenton, Paterson, Union City), Connecticut (Bridgeport) and Pennsylvania (Philadelphia).


Unidentified mother and daughter
Photograph by Sol. Young Studios, taken c.1920s
Image © Michael-Ann Belin & courtesy of Flickr
The business flourished throughout the 1920s and into the early 1930s. By 1933 Minnie Young appeared to be in the process of handing over the reins of the business to her husband's nephew, Arthur Lewis Pawliger (1891-1970), who is shown as president and treasurer of Sol. Young Photographer Inc. in a directory of that year. Two years later, at the age of 63, Minnie Young died.

During the years of the Depression, the firm came up with a marketing plan to keep the once successful business afloat. They reputedly sent photographers out on the streets of large cities with ponies, hoping to entice customers with children to have "studio quality" portraits taken with the animals.

I haven't yet been able to determine how long it remained in business, but it seems unlikely to have survived much beyond the onset of the Second World War. In their time, however, they operated from a huge number of different addresses. I have attempted to provide an interim list of these, together with some dates of known operation.

35 University Place - 1893
840 Broadway - 1894
1204 Broadway - c.1900s, 1915
850-852 Broadway, Brooklyn - c.1910s, c.1920s
5606-5th Avenue, Brooklyn - c.1920s
17 Union Square West - 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, c1910s
40 West 34th Street, N.Y. - 1915, 1916, 1917, 1920, 1922, 1925
38 West 34th Street (3d fl) - 1933
1807 Amsterdam Avenue - 1915, 1916, 1917, 1920
985 Lexington Avenue - c.1910s, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1920, 1922, 1925
970 Lexington Avenue, N.Y. - 1922, 1933
142 West 23rd Street - c.1910s, 1915
107-109 West 125th Street, N.Y. - 1915, 1916, 1920, 1922, 1925
111-113 West 125th Street, N.Y. - c.1910s
112 West 125th Street - 1933
474 East Tremont Avenue, Bronx - c1910s, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1920, 1922
414 East Tremont Avenue - 1933
298 Willis Avenue - 1916
23 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn - c.1910s, c.1920s
24 Arlington Place, Brooklyn - c.1910s
129 Wall Street, Bridgeport, Conn. - 1913
129 Wall rms, Bridgeport, Conn. - 1918, 1923
207 Golden Hill, Bridgeport, Conn. - 1918
803 (6) Chapel Street, New Haven, Conn. - 1918, 1921, 1922, 1927, 1928
157 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, N.J. - c.1910s, c.1920s
923 Broad Street, Newark, N.J. - c.1910s, c.1920s
116 Springfield Avenue, Newark,N.J. - c.1910s
1622 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Penn. - c.1920s
31 Elm Street, Rochester, New York - c.1920s
2 North Broad Street, Trenton, N.J. - c.1920s
197 Market Street, Peterson, N.J. - c.1920s
700 Bergenline Avenue, Union City, N.J. - c.1920s

I welcome any additions to this list, in the form of new addresses or dates. If any readers are able to provide further information, please email me.


Site of Sol. Young's flagship studio, c.1915-1933
38-40 West 34th Street, Manhattan, New York
Image © & courtesy of GoogleMaps
Finally, I would like to focus on the premises from which Sol. and Minnie Young ran their chain of photographic studios: 38-40 West 34th Street, Manhattan, New York. At the time that Google Maps' StreetView camera car drove past a few years ago, this address was occupied by Porta Bella Fine Menswear & Shoes [although a June 2008 report suggests the store has since been remodelled.] To conclude this article, click on the image above to open the GoogleMaps Street View for this address, then pan upwards and to the left to see the building from which Colleen Fitzpatrick's Quiz #266 photo was taken, and which started this journey of discovery for me.

References

Abramovitch, Ilana & Galvin, Seán (2001) Jews of Brooklyn. Brandeis series in American Jewish history, culture, and life. Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England. 355p. ISBN 1584650036.

Email Correspondence with Michael-Anne Belin, October 2009, and Maria Belin's Autograph Album 1893 on Flickr

Undated Photograph of Young Woman, c.1910-1915, by Sol Young Studios, 543 S. Salina St., Syracuse, New York, on Onondaga County Pictures

Photograph of young woman, 1916, by Sol Young, on Artfire

Photograph of young girl, by Sol.Young Studios, N.Y. Brooklyn, N.J., on Etsy

Photograph of George "Highpockets" Kelly by Sol Young, c.1910s, on Vintage Ball Photogallery

Message from Rob Stieglitz on Rootsweb GENMSC-L Mailing List Archives, 8 Jul 2000, re. portraits from Sol. Young Studios, dated c.1900 & c.1925

Message from "scardiel" on Ancestry WORTH Surname Message Board, 23 Jul 2004, re. 3 portraits from Sol. Young Studio, dated c.1925 & c.1930

Message from Randall McDaniel on Ancestry SANG Surname Message Board, 15 Apr 2007, re. portrait from Solomon Young Studio dated 28 Aug 1914

Message from Judy Cronan on Ancestry McCONVILLE Surname Message Board, 16 Sep 2005, re. portrait from Sol. Young Studio

Message from Shelley Cardiel on Winham Family Genealogy Forum, 4 Jul 2004, re. portrait by Sol. Young Studio, dated c.1914

Sol. Young - NY Photographer, Message thread by various authors (Sep 2002-Dec 2003) on Ancestry Message Board

Notes about photograph dated July 1913 by Sol Young, The Genealogy site of Zigelboim, Krotman and Kamm families

World War I from Wikipedia
- Battle of Tannenberg
- First Battle of the Marne

Keeping the Tradition Alive by Giddy Up Ponies Photo Services

Storecasting: Fossil Discovered in Midtown, by Cynthia Drescher, 27 June 2008, on Racked New York

International Genealogical Index (IGI) from the LDS Church & FamilySearch

US Federal Census Collection 1790-1930 Indexed images from Ancestry.com

Naturalization Index Card - Solomon Young, 1 Aug 1888, New York Petitions for Naturalization from Ancestry.com

Passport Application - Minnie Young, 28 June 1923, U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925 from Ancestry.com

New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 from Ancestry.com
Passenger List: S.S. Nieuw Amsterdam, sailing from Rotterdam, 12 Sep 1914, arr. New York, 21 Sep 1914
Passenger List: S.S. Olympic, sailing from Cherbourg, 19 Sep 1923, arr. New York 26 Sep 1923
Passenger List: S.S. Statendam, sailing from ?New York, 29 Jan 1930, arr. New York, 23 Feb 1930
Passenger List: S.S. Majestic, sailing from Southampton, 18 Mar 1931, arr. New York 24 Mar 1931

UK Incoming Passenger Lists from Ancestry.co.uk
Passenger List: S.S. Homeric, sailing from New York, Arr. Southampton, 10 Mar 1931

New York Directories from Ancestry.com
Trow's New York City Directory 1888, 1891, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898
New York City Directories 1891-92, 1893, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1920, 1922, 1925, 1933
New Haven City Directories 1921, 1922, 1927, 1928
Connecticut City Directories - Bridgeport 1913, 1918, 1923
Connecticut City Directories - New Haven 1918
Connecticut City Directories - Bridgeport 1918

New York Times Article Archive
New York Times, 24 September 1921.
New York Times, 19 June 1922, p. 11.
New York Times, 26 October 1935.