CDV of 1873 Gentleman with double-gilt border lines
This 1873 image of a blue-eyed young gentleman is just one of several I have from the early 1870s that have the double-gilt border line which most people think indicates an 1860s image. True, the vast majority of pictures with this type of card-stock date from that decade, but not all of them — some hold-outs (or were they just slow businesses with leftover stock?) continued to use these in the early 1870s. The tie style is more typical of the 1870s, and the size of the vignette definitely places this in the late 1860s to early 1870s as well. Oh yes, and for you eBay sellers: the Civil War was April 1861 to April 1865 — not all 1860s (let alone the many 1870s, 1880s images described as ‘Civil War Era’) date from the Civil War. And those tax stamps? They were required August 1864 through August 1866 — so many authentic ones are actually post-Civil War, and some dealers have stuck old stamps on images as late as the 1890s to trick uninformed purchasers.
Finely dressed lady carrying a walking stick in ersatz mountain scene.
Here is a good example of mid-1870s style, with the floor-sweeping dress trailing off behind this erstwhile mountain climber. She is of course not really in the mountains, but in the photographic studio of J Ganz in Zurich, standing next to a huge paper-maché boulder.
This image also demonstrates the universality of women’s fashion in the 19th century — this lady would not look out-of-place in London or Boston in that year. They were all wearing whatever was in vogue in Paris, with only minor local variations.
Lucy Ellen Mears 1870 tintype
This is a tintype photograph. It may have had a paper sleeve covering it originally, but those often tear, and the tintype falls out. Someone has helpfully identified the subject, location and date for this image, and written it on a label pasted to the back. The inscription reads “Lucy Ellen Mears, 19 months, Neponset Mass, 1870″. We didn’t find her with a quick census search of the 1870 census — the name was probably indexed wrong — but in the 1880 census we find 11 year old Lucy E Mears living in Boston (Neponset is a Boston neighborhood), daughter of John and Caroline. So the identification and date is probably correct, though of course we can not be sure. Only other identified photos of Lucy at the same approximate age could confirm the identification.
Note that she is sitting on the typical tasseled photographer’s chair, with a plain wall for a background — a typical low-budget photographer’s studio for the period. Tintypes were cheap, often just a dollar for a dozen, and some photographers specialized in just that form.
Lucy wears an off-the-shoulder checkered frock with a thin matching belt, and short sleeves tied up with ribbons at the back. Her hair is center-parted and pulled back, probably into a pony tail. There are light smudges of rouge coloring on the cheeks — two quick dabs to add a ‘life-like’ color to the image.
1871 Portrait of Two Ladies by William Shaw of Chicago
This interesting photograph shows two ladies, one seated(?) with her back to the camera showing her extremely long hair. No chair is visible, perhaps she is on a small stool that is completely engulfed by her dress. Next to her is a fashionably attired young woman, perhaps her sister, standing with a hand on the seated woman’s shoulder. The two women face one another, but at different levels, and appear to gaze beyond each other. The standing woman is wearing a dark dress with a pronounced bustle, and a flower and ribbon topped hat.
There is an inscription on back that reads ‘Taken May 71′, and a photographer’s imprint with the NPA (National Photographic Association) logo. That logo was mostly used 1871-74. The photographer is William Shaw, and the imprint shows his address as 137 Twenty-Second Street, Chicago IL. Shaw was at that address beginning in 1871, until some time before he moved to State Street in 1874 or 1875.
Since Shaw had a different address in 1870, we might think he moved due to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 — but this image argues against that supposition. This is dated May of ‘71, while the fire was in October of that year. Since the earlier address was 186 Clark — right in the heart of the fire zone — while 22nd street is far south of the central city and nowhere near the fire, it seems his move was prescient. Rather than being engulfed by the blaze, Shaw was in an ideal location to document the tragedy photographically, and several of his images were used to create engravings that newspapers of the day used to report the disaster.
