Photographs in
From Pioneers to Professionals
Summarized by Anita Taylor Doering
The La Crosse Area Genealogical Society was pleased to host Ed
Hill, retired Special Collections Librarian at UW-La Crosse, as their speaker
at the March 25, 2006, meeting. Mr.
Hill’s master’s thesis, A History of Photography in
Hill’s
book and other
Some notes I took during the presentation were enlightening
as to when some of these technological advances in photography came to middle
America and the
During the 1840s daguerreotypes were in fashion. They came in cases and have a mirror like
quality that when reflected in the light seem to have both a negative and
positive look. However, sometimes the
case was kept and the photography was swapped out for a later photograph. So the case cannot always tell you how old
the photograph is. Most people who came
to
Plain brass designs around the case are early, usually ca.
1846-1847 in the Midwest (
Photographers used natural light from a northern exposure until the 1880s when flash powder began to be used. Some photographers even had traveling galleries on boats or railroad cars.
Men often did not have a suit coat, so men in particular may have borrowed clothes from either the photographer or a friend or family member for the photograph. Few older photographs were candid; they were all very posed. People had to hold still for 10 seconds as there was no shutter on the camera of those days. Women’s clothing was more true to fashion of the time and tended to belong to them.
In the early 1860s-1870s and even some in the 1880s, carte de visite images were popular. The photographer name is usually imprinted on the backside and these were meant for putting into an album rather than to be framed or cased. They were cheaper to produce. Cabinet photographs had a negative process so that they could be reproduced easily and cheaply at $1.75 each. This process usually produced larger sizes than the smaller carte de visite, and was available during the same time period, stretching even into the 1890s.
The tintype was the “everyman’s” photograph and became popularized during the Civil War. Photographers followed the troops around and these were small enough that they could be mailed back home to loved ones. People could buy a set of six of $2. How do you distinguish a tintype? If you use a magnet, it will hold onto a tintype but will not hold on any other type of photograph.
Almost all photographs had some level of touching up including a hand painting process to give the cheeks a bit of color.
Stereoview cards were seldom of families or individuals, but were used more for educational and recreational purposes. They generally were commercially produced and sometime reproduced illegally by others. Real picture postcards came into being in 1895 and surged in popularity from 1903-1920s. The idea that photography could be used as a form of advertising began to take off, such as the Wisconsin Dells and other resort areas, drug stores, etc.
In the 1890s, a medallion or button photograph was popular. These are the types of images found on tombstones. Charcoal or chalk drawing of photographs was typical of the 1890s-1910s. Itinerant photographers would enlarge a photograph onto card board then filled in the image with chalk or crayon.
For some general history of photography, check out some books from your local library, or visit a web site such as http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/.