Portraits from the first 100 years of photography
Fabyan House was a grand resort hotel in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Completed in 1873, it was named after Horace Fabyan, who had operated a hotel on the same site called the Mount Washington House, which had burned in 1853. Fabyan House had 250 rooms for up to 500 guests. It had its own... Continue Reading →
Built in 1914 at Swindon Works in Wiltshire, England, the steam locomotive Princess Victoria (4048) remained in service until 1953. On February 28, 1922, HRH Princess Mary was to marry Viscount Lascelles, future Earl of Harewood. A locomotive was required for the royal train. The logical choice would have been an existing engine in the... Continue Reading →
These men appear to have come out of the building behind them to pose for an impromptu group photograph. Intriguingly, two of them are holding tools of their trade, whatever that was. One of those men is also holding a round object with the year 1875 written on it, along with the number 60, the... Continue Reading →
I bought this carte-de-visite from a dealer in Kettering, England. My guess would be that it belonged originally to a family associated with a British diplomatic mission in the Middle East or North Africa. India is also a possibility.
This charming little CDV came from Chesterfield, Derbyshire, but has no information on it to confirm its origin. The girls are elegantly dressed and must have come from relatively well-to-do families. After scanning the photo I noticed that one of the girls is of African or mixed-race heritage. I love the fact that the school's... Continue Reading →
In this photo the coworkers from the previous post have been joined by four more men. The man at far right may be an owner or manager. The four women who stood arm-in-arm in the previous photo are now seated together in front. Here you can see the photo in high resolution:
This photograph shows a group of coworkers at an unidentified location. A man at lower right is conspicuously holding what appears to be a screwdriver. The man at far left is wearing an apron with something dark on it, perhaps oil or ink. The man next to him is holding a pencil. Between them a... Continue Reading →
This ethereal CDV portrait was made by A. Brossut of Digoin, Bourgogne (Burgundy). The young woman isn't identified. I found a few references online to "A. Brossut, éditeur," but no other information about the photographer.
This postcard came from the estate of Hazel Alberts Peterson (1898-1989). As a girl, Hazel Alberts attended Seattle Seminary, a Free Methodist college preparatory school. College-level classes were introduced in 1910, and in 1915 the school's name was changed to Seattle Pacific College. For more information about Hazel and her family, please see the page... Continue Reading →
An inscription in pencil on the back of this carte-de-visite says simply: "Dr. Sanford 1883." She was easy to identify, and her individual story is fascinating and inspiring. I also learned that Dr. Sanford's life and career were closely connected to those of other pioneering women in medicine and in other fields who supported and... Continue Reading →
This unusual image shows a group of men engaging in the labor-intensive process of breaking rocks into pieces and sorting them by size for use in road construction. A small smokestack in the background indicates that a steam engine powered the conveyor which carried pieces of rock up to a sorting sieve.
To continue the cooking theme of the previous post, this postcard from Germany is an unusual portrait of a young cook in her kitchen uniform. Taken in a studio against a rustic painted backdrop, her spotless white clothes glow under careful studio lighting. Like CDVs in the nineteenth century, individual postcard portraits were often exchanged... Continue Reading →
Tokens of Companionship 
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