I love the personal touch on this card – “Yours with Respect, Chas. Cain” and “Emma” in the negative number spot. He looks like he’s barely old enough to shave, yet out in the world on his own. The handwriting is somewhat unsteady – teenage nerves at dedicating the card to an intended? At first I thought the phrasing was a bit odd for a teenage boy, but that was the 19th century, now we are in the 21st. A 21st century kid would probably not send a picture of himself in an ill-fitting suit to a girl he liked with the inscription “yours with respect” (he’d probably sext her with a photo of his nether anatomy from his cellphone), but “yours with respect” is VERY much in keeping with a 19th century teenager’s style of expression.
Also note the feet of the posing stand peeking out from behind his legs – because photography is so instantaneous these days, it’s something we never experience today unless you happen to get into alternative process photography, so it stands out as anomalous to a modern viewer.
Here for your viewing pleasure are three random CDVs. The first one I don’t have a lot to say about because the sitter is unknown. The photographer is William Shew, who began his photographic career on the East Coast, then moved out to San Francisco in 1851 to capitalize on the gold rush. He began his career as a Daguerreotypist, and his first studios in San Francisco were a mobile wagon parked in the plaza at Kearny between Clay and Washington streets – now Chinatown (which I hope to photograph the location as it appears today while I’m out in San Francisco on vacation). He was one of only three photographers in San Francisco at the time. Anonymous CDV by Willam Shew, San Francisco
The next pair of images come from the mid-19th century cult of celebrity. Although both cards are not marked as to their photographer, there is a good probability that they were taken by the Brady studio, which was known for such subjects, and both had been photographed on other occasions by Brady. The first is Henry Ward Beecher, the prominent preacher and abolitionist and brother to Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and according to Abraham Lincoln, “this little lady whose book started this great big war”. CDV of Henry Ward Beecher, photographer unknown (probably Brady)
This one may NOT be Brady’s, because the set is so plain – even the hat stand/support prop is rather simple for Brady’s studio, and oftentimes public figures of Beecher’s status would be invited to sit for their pictures whenever they visited a new town. These cards were the sports trading cards/Tiger Beat posters of their day, and people would collect them in albums to show off when friends came to visit.
The last image is another of Commodore Nutt and a woman who is unidentified, but another little person. It MAY be Minnie Warren, sister of Lavinia Warren, ex-sweetheart of Commodore Nutt who went on to marry General Tom Thumb in the Fairy Wedding (see previous post), but she appears smaller of stature than Minnie. It is also NOT the Commodore’s wife, who while below average height, was not a dwarf. Again, an anonymous image, but very much in the same vein. It may be possible to identify the photographer from the backdrop of the image. The custom backdrops like this were often like fingerprints or signatures for individual photographers’ work – the painted backdrops were often custom-made and very expensive, so they show up over and over again. Commodore Nutt and unknown little woman, Anonymous CDV (probably Brady)
Note the feet of the posing clamp stand showing from behind the girl/woman. I love finding images that show the stand – it’s a bit of a reminder how the image was made. These would all have been shot in daylight studios on wet plate collodion negatives, which meant that the subjects still had multi-second exposures to hold still for.
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