This is an E&HT Anthony reprint of a Mathew Brady CDV of “Fightin” Joe Hooker, appointed by Lincoln to lead the Union armies after Burnside’s disaster at Fredericksburg. Hooker didn’t last long after, meeting his tactical doom at Chancellorsville. This is not a rare version of the image, but rather an 1860s equivalent of a celebrity collector card – people would assemble albums featuring the politicians, generals, stars of the stage, and other celebrity types (Barnums’ Circus freaks, writers, poets, and so on). Unlike today where people, mostly teenagers, collect pictures of their favorite stars, in the 19th century it was not uncommon to find these cartes mixed in with the family album, and collected by the senior members of the family, not just star-struck children.
The scan does not do the original justice. An amazingly beautifully preserved CDV of a Barnum performer. She was originally from Kokomo, Indiana. Hired in 1879 at age 11, she weighed 28 lbs. The photo is then most likely also from that year or within a year or two after that date.
Just added two more cartes-de-visite to the collection, both Mathew Bradys. My first Brady celebrity card – General Joseph Hooker, and my first Brady from his Washington studio. The DC studio mark seems far more rare than the New York studio, so far. Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places for them, but out of the seven I have, only one is the DC studio, and of the ones I’ve looked at, maybe 50 or so, I think I’ve only seen the DC imprint two or three times.
I’ve begun a project to catalog and map the locations of Victorian-era photography studios in Washington DC, New York and Philadelphia. Using my own collection as a starting point, and skimming back-marks off cartes-de-visite and cased images on Ebay, I’ve come up with some lists, and I’ve begun to put them on a Google Map. Here is my New York list:
STUDIO NAME
ADDRESS
DATES OF OPERATION
R.A. Lewis
152 Chatham Street *
unknown
K.W. Beniczky
#2 New Chambers Street, corner of Chatham *
unknown
R.A. Lord
164 Chatham Street *
unknown
Bogardus
363 Broadway
1860s
Bogardus
872 Broadway
late 1870s
Mathew Brady
359 Broadway
(1853-1859)
Mathew Brady
643 Bleeker Street
(1859-1860)
Mathew Brady
785 Broadway
(1860-)
Chas. K. Bill
603 Broadway
unknown
J. Gurney & Sons
707 Broadway
unknown – early
J. Gurney & Sons
5th Avenue & 16th Street
unknown – late
Glosser
827 Broadway
unknown
Vaughan’s Gallery
228 Bowery
unknown
Bailey’s Photograph Gallery
371 Canal Street
unknown
Loud’s Celebrated Album Cards
unknown
unknown
Fernando Dessaur
145 8th Avenue
unknown
* addresses no longer exist. New Chambers Street & Chatham Street are now approximately where New York City Civic Center and Police Headquarters are now located.
I will be doing the same for Washington DC and Philadelphia as I gather more information. These lists are obviously incomplete – if anyone has more information out there on other studios not captured on this list, please pass it along! My interest is in studios operating before 1900, ideally before 1880. If you have information about a given studio during the Daguerrian, wet plate, and the early Dry Plate eras, please include that as well. In my simplistic research, I’ve been finding that along with the change in media, studios moved around a lot – Mathew Brady had four different locations in New York City alone between 1850-1860.
As I’ve been collecting images, especially photos more than a century old, I get curious about what I find. Who was this person? Where were they from? What did they do? Where was this photo taken? Oftentimes, those anonymous images are destined to remain that way, completely unidentifiable. However, sometimes you can do some digging and find out some really amazing things about your images. Three examples:
Pleasant Valley Winery, Hammondsport, NY Carte de Visite by Matthew Brady
I found this CDV by Matthew Brady on Ebay. The location was unspecified. Given that it was taken by his New York studio, I guessed it was also in New York state somewhere. New York has a number of wineries, so I figured it might very well be the Taylor Winery. Google is your friend on such quests – I did a Google Image search for Taylor Winery, and was coming up a bit short, but by happenstance I found a photo of the Pleasant Valley winery building which looked an awful lot like the main building in the photo. Further research on Pleasant Valley showed that the winery was the first bonded winery in the United States, and that it opened its doors in 1860. Perfect timing for a CDV by Brady, who might have actually taken this photo (and not one of his assistants, which was common) given that the Civil War had not yet started, and he would have had time to travel to Hammondsport from New York City to take the photographs himself.
Horatio B. Buck, MD - 1st Lt. 11th Volunteers.
Another Ebay acquisition. This one took a bit more digging, but through a link I found on Google, I was able to find a fair bit of information on Dr. Buck. Trying to figure out what his name actually was was the bigger challenge, as his handwriting is somewhat loose. I’m still trying to find out more about him- where he served, what battles he worked at, etc. The amazing thing is that so many Civil War records are available online.
Family in Novelty Car, Cliff House, San Francisco
This was another fun one. Completely anonymous tintype. I was trying to put a date to the image, with little luck. The car is a generic “car type” and not representing any actual vehicle. Then I took a look at the backdrop. Gosh, that looked familiar. Again, Google Images is your friend in a quest like this. The scene? Cliff House in San Francisco, with Seal Rock in the surf. Cliff House in the form shown in the photo burned down in 1907 (yes, it survived the 1906 earthquake only to perish a year later in a fire). Given that most cars prior to 1905 or so didn’t have that form factor of a semi-closed four door body, that would put it between 1905-1907, and of course locate the photo as having been taken at or near Cliff House.
I got into collecting photography a few years ago, specifically vintage cased images. Really good cased images have started appreciating in value and are no longer the bargains that they used to be, but you can still pick up nice anonymous Daguerreotypes and tintypes for not too much money. An important thing to know is how to tell the difference – many people don’t know and will confuse the two, and try to sell (and price) the less valuable tintype as a Daguerreotype. The easiest way to tell the difference is in the appearance. A Daguerreotype will have a mirror finish and be hard to view directly without a black or other non-reflective color surface in front of it. Tintypes will weigh less and be clearly viewable from any angle. There are lots of other tips that can clue you in if you’re not sure, but that’s the obvious, easy distinction.
dcphotoartist 