Portraits from the first 100 years of photography
This view of women and girls working was captured by the German-Italian photographer Alfredo Noack (1833-1895). Born August Alfred Noack in Dresden in 1833, he moved to Italy in his early twenties, first living in Rome (1856-1860) and then moving to Genoa, where he opened a photography studio. He lived in Genoa for the rest... Continue Reading →
In 2011 I bought an album of family snapshots from British Columbia. No one in the album is identified by last name, so I haven't been able to identify the family. Some of the photographs were taken during the years 1915-1917, according to handwritten annotations. A girl named Hazel appears in many of them, so... Continue Reading →
Apple season is in full swing in New England. It will continue until early November, which is probably the time of year when the photo above was taken, considering how few leaves are visible on the trees. The photo is the right half of a stereoview by Edward L. Allen (1830-1914). Edward Allen seems... Continue Reading →
The school year started this week in Vermont. When I saw a yellow school bus on the road for the first time in months, it occurred to me that I haven't posted a school photo on the blog in a while. Class photos can be rather somber, but most of the kids in the photo... Continue Reading →
This cabinet card portrait was made by photographer George James Maddison, whose studio was at 9 Norfolk Road in Dalston, which is in the London Borough of Hackney. (In 1938 Norfolk Road was renamed Cecilia Road.) Information on the website photoLondon suggests he may have been the son of John Maddison, a photographer and retired... Continue Reading →
When I bought this photograph from a dealer in Arkansas, he and I both assumed the photo had originated in neighboring Texas, which is known as the Lone Star State. Well, it turns out there have been schools with the name "Lone Star" in several different states. The only additional information on the photo was... Continue Reading →
In the previous post we were in Kolkata, West Bengal. This week we're in the Carondelet neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri. We've also traveled back in time another ten years. As you can see, it's a little colder in St. Louis, but not too cold. A light jacket is all you need for winter sports!... Continue Reading →
This postcard was sent from Helsinki (Swedish: Helsingfors), the capital of Finland, to the Finnish port town of Hanko (Hangö) on February 16, 1915. At that time Finland was a Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire. Because Russia was engaged in the First World War, the card had to be cleared by a wartime government... Continue Reading →
I'm guessing they're siblings, but I can't say for sure. This early cabinet card photo came from a collection of musical ephemera in Boston, Massachusetts. (Two other posts featuring photos from the same collection are Music and baseball in the forest and "Waldfreunde" Mandolin Orchestra (1922).) Do their outfits suggest any particular place of origin? Despite... Continue Reading →
This is my first post with photos from California. I don't know the names of the kids or the year the photo was taken. It was for sale together with another class photo that must have been taken a year or two earlier, because many of the same kids are in both photos (see below). ... Continue Reading →
This early cabinet card has no information on it, but we can make a few reasonable assumptions. The cabinet card format was introduced in London in 1863 and in the United States in 1866. The two boys lying on the ground are wearing dark blue hats of the type worn by Union soldiers during the... Continue Reading →
The first thing I noticed about this class photo was how stern all the boys look. That isn't exactly normal for a group of 29 little boys. Then I realized that no one is blinking or fidgeting, which is pretty amazing. Whatever the photographer said to them, it definitely got their attention. Another striking thing about... Continue Reading →
Tokens of Companionship 
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