Sepia Saturday 184: Burmese Days

The Sepia Saturday prompt this week is, rather unusually, an image of a bas relief sculpture. I'm stretching the third dimension somewhat, but I think my offering fits the bill quite well.


Unidentified man in colonial uniform, Burma, c.1920s-1930s
Loose silver gelatin print (91 x 115mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
It was the 110th anniversary of George Orwell's birth last week, so what better opportunity to use this loose paper print from my collection. Sadly it has lost all provenance, and I have no idea who the colonial wallah in his solar topee and tropical khaki uniform was, but the inscription on the back clearly identifies it has having been taken in Burma. I estimate it to have been taken in the 1920s and, since Orwell (aka Eric Arthur Blair) served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma from October 1922 until July 1927, they were quite possibly colleagues and may well have known each other.

I've looked at several hundred images of seated Buddhas in arched niches trying to find this particular one to no avail, so I'm hoping that a reader will one day be able to identify where this snapshot was taken.


No 3 Autographic Kodak Model G
Image © and courtesy of the Tauranga Heritage Collection
The 3¼" x 4¼" format implies it was printed from 118, 119 or 124 format film, which in turn suggests that the photographer used a roll film camera such as the No 3 Autographic Kodak Model G (above) or the Blair No 3 Folding Hawkeye Model 3 (below).


Blair No 3 Folding Hawk-Eye Model 3
Image © and courtesy of the Tauranga Heritage Collection

I hope you will like this Photo better than the last one it was taken by my mate
the figure by which I am standing is one of the Budhas which the Burmese worship

Eric Blair (back row, 3rd from left), 1923
Police Training School, Mandalay, Burma
In an essay written some years later, Orwell makes it clear that he spent five formative years working in a job he despised, and in a position which left him feeling incredibly uncomfortable.

I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better ... All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible. With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest's guts. Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty

... when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "natives," and so in every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.

George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant

The British Club in Katha, Myanmar (Burma)
Image © Aung Shine Oo and courtesy of The New York Times
In 1927, during sick leave in England, Orwell finally made the decision to resign from the service to become an author and never returned to Burma. His experiences there formed the basis of his first major work, Burmese Days and, some would argue, were instrumental in developing the political beliefs which pervaded all of his subsequent work.

... it is a corrupting thing to live one's real life in secret. One should live with the stream of life, not against it.

George Orwell, Burmese Days

Most have heard of, if not read, Orwell's seminal works, Animal Farm and 1984. If you haven't already done so, I think his lesser known works, such as Burmese Days, Down and Out in Paris and London, Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia are well worth adding to your reading list.

References

Quotes from Burmese Days by George Orwell, on Goodreads.

Orwell, George (1936) Shooting an Elephant, New Writing, 2, Autumn 1936.

Perlez, Jane (2013) In Myanmar Outpost, a Fading Orwellian Link, The New York Times, 23 May 2013.

George Orwell [The Characteristics of Burmese Days], on Ba Kaung, 17 Oct 2007.

Sepia Saturday 177: Let the Children Kodak, the beloved Brownie camera

Among a group of old photographs given to me a few years ago by a friend, collected by her father in New Hampshire, are several mounted prints of identical size which, judging by the clothing worn by the subjects, appear to have been taken in the first few years of the twentieth century. The prints measure roughly 2¼" x 3¼" (58 x 80mm) and are mounted on card about 4" x 5" (100 x 125mm) in a variety of colours, including white, cream, grey and green. Sadly none of these four photographs have the subjects identified, and the provenance has long been lost, so all I have been able to deduce is that they are probably from New Hampshire or Massachusetts, and that the last two are of the same person.


Unidentified mother and daughter, undated estd. c.1900-1905
Silver gelatin print (83 x 56mm) mounted on card (128 x 102mm)
Image © and collection of Brett Payne Some Rights Reserved
The first, rather charming glossy print is in what we would now refer to as landscape format, and is pasted on a gray and white coloured card with an embossed pattern of wavy lines and two series of loops, and with a bevelled edge. The young girl and an older woman, who look alike enough to be mother and child, are kneeling/crouching on a leaf-strewn lawn adjacent to a narrow path which curves along a hedge and behind them under the shade of a tree, and then disappears around a corner. The narrowness of the path suggests a private garden, and the fallen leaves presumably imply that it is autumn. The woman's long skirt, light-coloured blouse with slightly puffy sleeves narrowing at the elbow and pompadour hairstyle, together the girl's large-sleeved jacket and a bow at the top of her head all point to a date in the early 1900s, say between 1900 and 1905.

It's worth noting that there appears to have been some light leakage, either in the camera or during film removal, causing a wavy band of over-exposure - or fogging - along the top edge of the print. The photographer has chosen a good viewing angle so that the sun, to the right of and slightly behind the camera, and already fairly high in the sky (so probably taken in the late morning or early afternoon), casts some shadows on the subjects's faces and clothing, illuminating them with relief rather than flattening the tonal variation.


Unidentified girl with dog, Undated, estd. c.1905-1915
Silver gelatin print (83 x 56mm) mounted on card (128 x 102mm)
Image © and collection of Brett Payne Some Rights Reserved
The second photo, in portrait format, is also marred with a little over-exposure along the upper left-hand edge and in the lower half of the image, although the fact that it is not just confined to the edges suggests that it may be due to a poor choice of lighting angle, rather than careless handling of the rollfilm. The mount is dark greenish-grey coloured card (it looks greener in the scan than in reality, due to my enhancing the rather faded image) with a neatly printed white rectangle framing and drawing attention to the print.

This teenaged girl wears a long skirt and a pouch-fronted top with a sailor-style collar, the broad lapels tied at the front, and a large bow at the back of her head. Although still from the first decade or two of the twentieth century, I suspect this dates from a little later than the first photo, say between 1905 and 1915. She is standing by a staircase leading up to a clapboard house with wooden shutters. A creeper growing up the side of a pillar on the edge of a verandah has very few leaves, so perhaps this is was also taken in autumn. The dog appears to have been caught in mid-scratch, but it's in the middle of the over-exposed bit, so even if I did know more about dogs I probably wouldn't be able to identify the breed.


Unidentified woman and shrubbery, Undated, estd. c.1905-1910
Silver gelatin print (83 x 56mm) mounted on card (128 x 102mm)
Image © and collection of Brett Payne Some Rights Reserved
The next two portraits show the same young woman, perhaps in her mid-twenties to early thirties, posing amongst palms, ferns and succulents, probably originating from a much warmer climate. Despite the external view of a series of second-storey windows in the background, I have come to the conclusion that both snapshots were taken in a conservatory or glass-roofed courtyard, as there is plenty of light coming down from directly above, but it looks too well manicured (one of the potted plants even has a label) to be outdoors. Besides, she appears to be dressed for winter weather, rather than the warm conditions necessary for the cultivation of such fauna. Perhaps this accounts for her slightly unhappy demeanour - the humidity in there is causing some discomfort.


Unidentified woman and shrubbery, by undated estd. c.1905-1910
Silver gelatin print (83 x 56mm) mounted on card (128 x 102mm)
Image © and collection of Brett Payne Some Rights Reserved
Both are mounted on greyish card with bevelled edges, although of slightly different shades and ornamentation - one has a fancy patterned white border around the print, the other a simple embossed, grey rectangular border. The woman's clothing consists of a high-necked blouse, a double-breasted full length coat with velvet collar and sleeves which are wide at the shoulder but tapering towards the elbow. She is wearing leather gloves, a large corsage of roses, and a wide-brimmed hat with substantial floral-style decoration on the top to match the flowers. All of these combine to suggest to me an approximate date of between 1905 and 1910.

Neither photo looks over-exposed, the fuzzy patches of light in the second image probably being due to the dappled sunlight. Both prints have a matt finish, with the slight silvery sheen in darker areas characteristic of many silver gelatin prints from this era, produced by degradation of the emulsion.


"Let the Children Kodak"
1909 Advertisement by Eastman Kodak Co.
Image © and courtesy of Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
Besides the print/mount size and the fact that they were taken in bright sunlight, there is another common feature that the sharper-spotted of readers may have noticed - all four are taken from an approximately waist-high viewing position. With regard to the print size, since by far the majority of photographs were contact printed during the pre-War years, we can assume that it equates to the film size. The 105 and 120 roll film formats produced by Eastman Kodak Ltd., both measuring 2¼" x 3¼", were introduced in 1897 and 1901, respectively, narrowing the type of camera likely to have been used to one or more of the following new models introduced around the turn of the century:

• the Folding Pocket Kodak (1897-1899) & No 1 Folding Pocket Kodak (1899-1915) both used 105 film
• the No 2 Brownie (1901-1933) & No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie (1904-1915) both used 120 film

No 2 Buster Brown box camera, 1906-1923, by Ansco
Image © and courtesy of the Tauranga Heritage Collection
There were also several competing companies which produced similar models, such as Ansco's No 2 Buster Brown box camera introduced in 1906. A feature included with all of these devices was the prismatic viewfinder, which enabled a user to frame a picture by holding the camera at waist level, in either portrait or landscape orientation, and looking vertically downwards, just as the child is doing in the 1909 advertisement for a Brownie above.


"The Brownie Family"
1909 Advertisement by Eastman Kodak Co.
Image © and courtesy of Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
The first Brownie was introduced in February 1900, and was soon joined by a range of models, initially marketed very firmly towards use by children. The No 2 Brownie, ostensiby being operated by the young girl with two bows in her hair, second from right in the above advertisement, was by far the highest selling. First sold in October 1901, by the time the Model F was discontinued in 1933 several million had been manufactured.


"There's no better fun than picture taking ... The Brownie Family"
1909 Advertisement by Eastman Kodak Co.
Image © and courtesy of Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
Kodak advertisements appearing throughout the first decade of the twentieth century reinforced the message that the family of Brownie cameras belonged in your family, and that there was a Brownie for every age and pocket. The No 2 Brownie cost a mere $2.00, and the more versatile No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie just $5.00. For the first time, cameras and photography were within the reach of almost everyone.


No 2 Brownie Model F, 1924-1933, by Eastman Kodak Co
Image © and courtesy of the Tauranga Heritage Collection
This No 2 Brownie from the Tauranga Heritage Collection is a Model F, manufactured a couple of decades after the four photographs displayed above were taken, but the overall design had changed little. The phenomenal success of the Brownie, originally marketed for children in a massive media campaign, meant that within a decade a huge number of American and British families owned a box camera, even if the majority of them were not actually being used by children. The claim that by 1910 a third of all Americans owned a camera (Jenkins, 2005) seems hardly credible, but certainly by 1921 over 2.5 million No 2 Brownies alone had been produced (Coe, 1978), making this by far the most popular of the models which used this film format.


View of river scene with building and boat, undated
Silver gelatin print on Velvet Velox paper (2¼" x 3¼") mounted on embossed "Brownie" brand brown card (4" x 5") with bevelled edges
Taken with No 2 Brownie camera, by an unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Jos Erdkamp
These two images (above and below) show the front and reverse of another example of a mounted print from a No 2 Brownie, displayed by antique camera enthusiast Jos Erdkamp on the web site which documents his collection of early Kodaks. Jos, who very kindly took the trouble to send me detailed scans and gave me permission to reproduce these images, writes:

It is not rare, it is not expensive, it even is not pretty, but it is the camera that recorded our history during the first part of the 20th century. The No. 2 Brownie was made in large numbers: several million and at least 2,500,000 before 1921. Together with the 2A Brownie, which took a slightly larger photo and was also made in several millions, it was the camera that could be found in most families. In all the snaps these cameras have taken, the small and also not so small events of the first half of the last century are documented. For this it deserves a place of honor in camera history.

Reverse of No 2 Brownie card mount (4" x 5")
Image © and courtesy of Jos Erdkamp
The printed text on the back states:

Velox print showing the size and quality of negative made with the No. 2 Brownie Ccamera and No. 2 Folding Pocket Brownie Camera - Mounted with Kodak Dry Mounting Tissue - Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, N.Y.

This, together with the text "Velvet Velox" inserted on the print itself, suggests to me that the photo may have been a commercially produced promotion sample, rather than an ordinary amateur snapshot. However, the colour and embossed frame of the mount is very similar to that of the fourth print in my own collection, and was obviously a commonly used design.


No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie, 1904-1915, by Eastman Kodak Co
Image © and courtesy of the Tauranga Heritage Collection
The other camera mentioned is the No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie, the smallest of the simple folding Brownies produced by Kodak in these early years. It is shown being used by a young lad, perhaps 9 or 10 years old (fourth from right), in the 1909 advertisement above, and also took 120 format rollfilm. Along with its predecessor the No 2 Folding Brownie, only 250,000 were produced between 1904 and 1915.


Bullock cart, Philippines, 1898
Silver gelatin print (2¼" x 3¼") on glossy embossed card mount (4" x 5")
Taken with Folding Pocket Kodak camera, photographer unidentified
Image © and courtesy of Jos Erdkamp
Another possibility for the 2¼" x 3¼" format print are the Folding Pocket Kodak (1897-1899) and its successor the No 1 Folding Pocket Kodak (1899-1915), both of which used 105 rollfilm and sold for $10, some 200,000 of which were produced. Jos Erdkamp has a very nice example of such a photograph, taken in the Philippines in 1898, which is mounted on glossy white card conveniently embossed with the words, "Folding Pocket Kodak." The style of mount, using glossy pale grey card embossed with a zig-zag pattern, is similar to that used for the first of my examples above.

During and after the Great War (1914-1918) the range of camera models which used 120 format film expanded dramatically, although the No 2 Brownie continued to enjoy great popularity for many years. At the same time, the fashion for mounting prints appears to have changed somewhat, and it became far more common to supply the customer with loose unmounted prints, which were of course a lot cheaper. However, if you have similar mounted prints dating from before the war, it may also be possible to identify the camera with which they were produced. I welcome contributions, so if you find any in your own family collection, please do get in touch - they may provide interesting material for a follow up article.

I hope to feature more film/print formats in the future, as I feel the matching of prints to cameras is a poorly studied field in photohistory. In the mean time, I expect a visit to Sepia Saturday's other contributers this week will reveal a few more child-oriented themes.

References

Coe, Brian (1978) Cameras: From Daguerreotypes to Instant Pictures, United States: Crown Publishers, p 89-91, 99-102.

Erdkamp, Jos (nd) No 2 Brownie (1901) and Folding Pocket Kodak, on Antique Kodak Cameras from the Collection of Kodaksefke.

Frost, Lenore (1991) Dating Family Photos 1850-1920, Victoria, Australia: Lenore Frost, 127pp.

Gustavson, Todd (2009) Camera, A History of Photography from Daguerreotype to Digital, New York: Sterling, 360pp.

Jenkins, Karen (2005) Brownie, in Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Photography, Warre, Lynn (ed.), London: Routledge.

West, Nancy Martha (2000) Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia, University Press of Virginia.

Sepia Saturday 169: Keeping a Kodak Story, the Autographic camera

The image prompt from Sepia Saturday this week depicts a swarm of photographers framing shots of the Washington Monument, the Tidal Basin and cherry trees in full bloom in April 1922. My focus will be on the instrument rather than the practitioner.


US Patent 1184941 issued to H.J Gaisman, 30 May 1916
Between 1912 and 1917, a young backyard inventor by the name of Henry J. Gaisman was granted several patents for photographic cameras. These improvements allowed the user to "write" a brief caption permanently on the film through a small window in the back of the camera, most importantly, at the time the picture was taken. Gaisman stated that his work on this device arose from the fact that "it annoyed him to return from a vacation trip with pictures that he could not identify," an irritation familiar to most of us who have taken more than a couple of snapshots.


"The Autographic Kodaks"
Detail from 1914 Advertisement by Eastman Kodak Co.
Image © and courtesy of Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
In July 1914 George Eastman of Eastman Kodal Ltd. paid Gaisman the "remarkable" sum of $300,000 for the patent rights. Within three months several Kodak camera models (1A, 3 and 3A) were on sale, modified accordingly, a special red paper/carbon-backed Autographic Film Cartridge also available in the appropriate film sizes (Coe, 1978).


"Make Your Kodak Autographic"
1914 Advertisement by Eastman Kodak Co.
Image © and courtesy of Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
In their marketing blurb Eastman Kodak described the Autographic as "the most important photographic Development in two decades." Not only was the feature "incorporated in all of the most important Kodak models," but they also supplied Autographic Backs at very reasonable prices, which could be retro-fitted to at least ten different models, as listed in a number of advertisements.

Prices from $9.00 to $65.00. If you already have a Kodak we can sell you a separate Autographic back. Prices $2.50 up.

"The Autographic Kodak" - a negative image
Detail from 1914 Advertisement by Eastman Kodak Co.
Image © and courtesy of Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
The advertisements emphasized the usefulness of the Autographic feature, and some included examples of the negatives and prints produced by the camera:

Every negative that is worth making is worth a date and title. The places you visit - interesting dates and facts about the children, their age at the time the pictures were made - the autographs of friends you photograph - these notations add to the value of every picture you make ... The amateur photographer who wants to improve the quality of his work can make notations on his negatives, of the light conditions, stop and exposure.

No 3A Autographic Kodak Special Model B
Image © and courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection
Kodak claimed great success with the Autographic models, in an 1915 advertisement apparently taken in by their own marketing strategies and hype (in West, 2000):

The Autographic feature has scored a hit, and a big one. At first, perhaps, the interest was mild ... now, in considerably less than a year, it is pretty hard to sell a camera without the Autographic Feature.

It would have been more accurate to say that it was pretty hard to find a Kodak camera without the Autographic feature as a standard feature.


"The Day of His Going"
1918 Advertisement by Eastman Kodak Co.
Image © and courtesy of Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
After the United States joined the War in April 1917, Kodak urged wives to capture the day of their husband's departure for Europe on film, not forgetting the date and title, permanently recorded on the negative. The Vest Pocket Kodak Autographic, reputedly used by the famed Ansel Adams on his second visit to Yellowstone in 1917, was even marketed as "The Soldier's Camera." The marketing focus was now on nostalgia rather than usefulness.


"?13/2/18 On Barron's Farm" - Paper print (116 x 78mm; 4¼" x 2½")
by an unidentified photographer using A116 film and a No. 1A Autographic Kodak or a No. 2A Folding Autographic Brownie camera
Image © and courtesy of Kristin Cleage
Fellow Sepian contributer Kristin Cleage posted this print of a rural family on her blog Finding Eliza a couple of years ago, and kindly assented to my using it to illustrate this article. It is typical of the prints that could be produced from Autographic film, the black left hand border containing a somewhat overexposed caption which is rather hard to read, perhaps indicative of a problem that was sometimes encountered with the Autographic.


No 1A Autographic Kodak (L), No 2A Folding Autographic Brownie (R)
Images © and courtesy of Historic Camera
Assuming that it is a contact print, the size corresponds to A116 film, which was used by both the No. 1A Autographic Kodak and the No. 2A Folding Autographic Brownie cameras, shown above. Kristin believes it was mostly likely taken at the farm of Oscar Barron in Elmore, Alabama, where her great-grandmother Annie Graham was working and living with her four children in 1920.


"Old Bill" - Paper print (40 x 60mm; 1⅝" x 2½")
by an unidentified photographer, undated
using A127 film and a Vest Pocket Kodak Autographic camera
Image © and courtesy of the Tauranga Heritage Collection
Another example of an Autographic print, this one probably taken in the late 1910s or early 1920s and possibly a copy, is from the Gunson-Stewart Album in the Tauranga Heritage Collection. The identity of the subject is unknown, although "Old Bill" could be William Nassau Stewart (1873-1954) of Katikati, maternal uncle of a former owner of the album.


Vest Pocket Kodak Autographic Special
Image © and courtesy of Historic Camera
Unless it is an enlargement rather than a contact print, the print size indicates A127 film, which was used in the Vest Pocket Kodak Autographic Special. Autographic cameras were on sale in New Zealand from at least as early as October 1915 (Advertisement, BOP Times, 1915).


"EAP" Kodak Autographic Print
Image © and courtesy of Fred the Oyster & Flickr
One of the few Autographic images that I did find is this example from Fred the Oyster's Flickr feed, which he scanned (and presumably inverted) from a negative purchased in a junk shop. I have seen very few examples of prints with the Autographic-style caption, and a trawl on the internet produces a similarly meagre catch.

Well known New Zealand photohistorian Bill Main (1990) wrote:

A type of camera which turns up regularly on our doorstep for our museum at the Centre is the Autographic Kodak in all its various shapes and sizes. The paradox of this is the fact that perhaps the rarest item in our collection happens to be photos made with the distinctive Autographic inscription on the print surrounds ... Why this innovation never appealed to the millions of Autographic camera users needs a lot of analysis and study.

and others have described similar experiences (Anon, 2001):

Over the years, at flea markets and antique stores, I've searched through boxes of old snapshots, but I rarely find Autographic prints with notations in the margins. If my experience is typical, then it makes me wonder if the Autographic feature was used very often?

Write it on the film - at the time.    Make every negative more interesting; more valuable by permananently recording, at the time of exposure, the all important - who, when, where. It's a simple and almost instantaneous process with an Autographic Kodak Ask your dealer, or write us for catalogue EASTMAN KODAK CO., Rochester, N.Y., The Kodak City

Eastman Kodak advertisement, 1917
With a little perseverance they can be found - Getty Images has a couple of examples from c.1918 and 1920 - but they are often referred to as a rarity. Judging by the number of Autographic cameras now available on eBay, between 1914 and the late 1930s, when they were discontinued, a huge number (reputedly millions) were sold, so why are there so few extant prints with the caption selvedge? There are several possible explanations:

• There are many more examples, both in private collections and on the web, but they have not been recognised as emanating from Autographic cameras. Searching the web with Google Images retrieves hundreds of images of cameras, but very few photographs produced by them.
• When prints are scanned for display on the web, the tendency is to remove framing and borders for aesthetic reasons. Many captions may also have been removed in the process, making them impossible to identify.
• Despite Eastman Kodak's initial enthusiasm for the innovation, it is conceivable that the majority of Autographic users over the two decades that they were produced just couldn't be bothered to caption each and every snapshot they took.

The text of this Kodak advertisement from 1915 suggests, however, that most prints never have included the captions, even though they may have been inscribed on the negative:

The Autographic records are made on the margins between the exposures. It is not intended that they be made to appear in the prints themselves but that they be simply preserved as an authoritative reference. It is obvious, however, that they may be shown on the print itself - if desired.

Sadly the bulk of the negatives from films exposed during the Autographic era have probably been discarded decades ago, so we may never know.


Vest Pocket Autographic Kodak Special
Image © and courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection
If you have any snapshots in your collection, either prints or original negatives, that include the typical Autographic caption, I'd be keen to hear from you, and perhaps to share images of them in a future Photo-Sleuth follow-up. Please email me.

For those readers wanting to match prints and negatives to cameras, this table may be useful. I've also created a Autographic Print Format PDF template with the various format sizes, which may be downloaded and printed out. It's always worth bearing in mind that not all prints are contact prints, i.e. identical in size to the negative from which they were printed. Enlargements were also offered to customers, even in Victorian and Edwardian times, but the vast majority of prints that were produced prior to the 1930s seem to be the much more affordable contact prints.

Film Size	Print/Negative Size	Camera Model(s)
A116	2½" x 4¼" (64 x 108 mm)	1A, 2A
A118	3¼" x 4¼" (83 x 108 mm)	3
A120	2¼" x 3¼" (57 x 83 mm)	1,2
A122	3¼" x 5½" (83 x 140 mm)	3A
A123	4" x 5" (102 x 127 mm)	4 (with conversion back)
A126	4¼" x 6½" (108 x 165 mm)	4A (with conversion back)
A127	1⅝" x 2¼" (41 x 57 mm)	Vest Pocket
A130	2⅞" x 4⅞" (73 x 124 mm)	2C

Acknowledgements

Kristin Cleage and Fiona Kean kindly assented to my use of Autographic prints, the former from her personal archives, the latter from the Tauranga Heritage Collection. Fiona also went to some trouble to assist with obtaining photographs of several Autographic cameras from the collection, for which I am most grateful.

References

Duke University Libraries Digital Collections, Emergence of Advertising in America Collection.

Eastman Autographic film, on Early Photography

Advertisement, Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 6506, 6 October 1915, Page 4, courtesy of Papers Past.

Anon (1914) $300,000 Won by a Young Inventor, The New York Times, 10 July 1914.

Anon (2001) Eastman Kodak Size A118 Autographic Film Cartridge, Scott's Photographic Collection.

Chocrón, Daniel Jiménez (2013) No. 1 Autographic Kodak Junior, on From the Focal Plane to Infinity.

Coe, Brian (1978) Cameras, from Daguerreotypes to Instant Pictures, United States: Crown Publishers, 240pp.

Gustavson, Todd (2009) Camera, A History of Photography from Daguerreotype to Digital, New York: Sterling, 360pp.

Macpherson, Alan M D (nd) Kodak - No. 2 Autographic Brownie, on Classic Cameras.

Main, Bill (1990) Kodak Autographic Special, New Zealand Centre for Photography, 10 Cameras Exhibition [retrieved 12 March 2013 from cache on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine].

West, Nancy Martha (2000) "Let Kodak Keep the Story" - Narrative, Memory, and the Selling of the Autographic Camera during World War I, in Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia, University of Virginia Press, Ch 6, p.166-199.

Photographic Ephemera: Posting envelopes and their relevance

Portrait of young man by Pollard Graham of Derby
Mounted print 250 x 350mm
Last week I wrote in the article "Which sibling is it?" about the importance of dating photographs in the process of identification of subjects. Today I return to this topic with an image sent to me three years ago by Graham Pare, who provided some background to the photograph:

It is the only photo I have from this area - my father's family were from Derbyshire, my great grandfather was Francis Willoughby Pare born Belper 1909 and his father was Robert Stanley Lee Pare, born Ripley 1887 - I guess it could be either of them, depending on your estimated year? There again it could be neither of them!

Imprint: Pollard Graham & Co, Head Office 108A Friar Gate, Derby
Negative number 68770
My response was as follows:

I believe that it was taken just before or during the First World War, perhaps between 1911 and 1916. This is from a comparison of the young man's clothing with other photos in my collection, as well as the number 68770 which you quoted from the reverse, and which I think must be a negative number. I have a post card photo of my own family by this studio with the negative number 70932, which is accurately dated at 13 Jul 1917, and I think yours must have been taken not too long before this date. I think it must therefore be the father, Robert Stanley Lee Pare, born in 1887, as the son would have been a maximum of seven years old, while the father was somewhere between 24 and 29. Does this fit with any conclusions you might have come to?

Portrait of young man by Pollard Graham of Derby
Mounted print
Then two years later I heard from Graham again with an update on the portrait:

I have now discovered that it is from my mother’s side of my family and not my father’s, as I originally thought. My brother had the same photo, but smaller, in his collection, and it was still in its original envelope!

Photograph envelope used by Pollard Graham of Derby
The envelope from Pollard Graham & Co. with Head Offices and Works at 108a Friar Gate, Derby is addressed to "Mr. S. Harding, The Rookery Cottage, Brixworth, Nr. Northampton," with a Derby postmark dated 31 July 1914, and the hand written negative number 68770.

The gentleman in the photo we now believe to be Sidney Harding, my grandfather’s brother. At the outset of WW1, Sidney enlisted as a Private, regimental number 25220, with the South Wales Borderers (formerly 8145 Army Cyclist Corps) at Northampton, where he was working as an engineering apprentice. He spent periods attached to 229 Company Royal Engineers and the Machine Gun Corps. Sid was born in Wendover, Buckinghamshire, on 4th February 1894 and would have therefore been around 20 years old at the time of this photo.

How nice for Graham to have not only an approximate date for the photograph, but also an address and a positive identification for the subject. I would be a little bit wary about the date, though, because the smaller mounted print posted within the envelope may have been an additional copy ordered after the original portrait had been received.

For me, however, the second portrait and the envelope with which it is associated provide additional information, rarely seen because these envelopes often don't survive.


View Pollard Graham Studios 1878-1932 in a larger map
Firstly it demonstrates that in mid-1914, on the eve of the British declaration of war on Germany, Pollard Graham & Co. was operating, in addition to the Derby studio, seven branches in Coventry, Northampton, Burslem, Longton, Rotherham, Luton and Lincoln simultaneously. This appears to have been the peak of a rapid period of expansion for the firm, commencing around 1904. Between then and 1905 Pollard Graham opened new studios in Peterborough, Burnely, Leigh, Wigan and Northampton. Around 1910, he went into partnership with Albert Hutchinson - hence the "Pollard Graham & Co.." The Peterborough and Burnley branches were closed, followed by Leigh in 1911 and Wigan in 1913, balanced by the opening of several branches in other, presumably more attractive, towns elsewhere in the Midlands.

As discussed in a previous article, lack of business due to wartime hardships quickly caused the closure of all the branches, and the partnership between Graham and Hutchinson was formally dissolved in March 1915. The Derby studio appears to have remained in business for much of the war's duration, judging by the number of portraits of servicemen taken there (see Pollard Graham portfolio), although the number of customers was no doubt significantly reduced.


Environs of 108A Friargate, Derby, c.1912, by F.W. Scarratt
Image courtesy of Rod Jewell's Yesterday's Derby and its Districts
Secondly it indicates that the exposed negatives of portraits taken at the branch studios, in this case the Northampton branch, were sent to the firm's Derby headquarters for printing. I had already suspected this, since they included the words "Head Office and Works" in their card mounts from c.1910 to 1915, and because most, if not all, of the negative numbers used between 1895 and 1922 appear to fit into a single sequence. However, it's good to have confirmation that it was happening in July 1914. Presumably increased efficiencies in the postal service of the time made it feasible, and both economies of scale and the reduced capital requirement for individual branches made it worthwhile.

Sending large numbers of glass plate negatives from around the Midlands by post to the Derby Works in Friargate seems to me a venture fraught with risk. Perhaps I'm underestimating the transport methods available at the time, but I can't imagine that even a small proportion of losses due to breakage would have been acceptable to either the firm or their clients. I wonder, therefore, if they were by this stage using roll film rather than dry-plate glass negatives, rapid developments having been made in roll film technology on the 1890s and early 1900s. Kodak introduced 9 new roll film sizes - from 3½" x 3½" up to 7" x 5" - to the commercial market in 1898 alone. I appreciate that glass plates still provided higher quality prints, and remained popular for some years. It's clear that this subject needs more research, but perhaps a reader or two can help with some in depth knowledge of the cameras used by studios at that time.