Save the Date
One day, they awake to find a beautiful morning. The leaves are just starting to fall off the trees, there is a breeze but it couldn’t be described as windy, and the birds chirp their sweet songs. It is the perfect day to take the perfect photo.
They’ll need to gather up all the necessary equipment. Their trusty Brownie ready to go, they begin to wonder of all the loved ones and possessions nearby--WHAT will subject of the photo be? At the very moment they are pondering this all-important question, the Good Dog comes and nuzzles his wet nose on their hand. “That’s it! I’ll immortalize man’s best friend. I’ll capture their loyal spirit on film. An unparalleled photograph.”
It’s a busy morning. They know an al fresco session is exactly what is in order for this expression of creativity: dog sitting outdoors, soft breeze rustling his lush coat. Trudging outside, the Photographer realizes they need contrast. Indoors juxtaposed with outdoors? On a second trip inside, they bring two chairs. The mismatch conveys a certain casual feeling. One of many mornings that this fine animal sat atop the dining chairs.
The photographer gazes into the background of what will be their masterpiece. A neighbor readies his wagon to head to the city. Ideally, they would wait for the wagon to leave the idyllic scene but there’s no time to waste.
With the chairs in position, they gather the hounds. Good Dog and Bad Dog are always together and they should be saved for posterity that way. “Dogs! Here!” Good Dog climbs onto his perch in a perfectly regal way, followed by Bad Dog. It. Is. Time!
In about seven seconds, they will have the World’s Greatest Photograph. Six seconds. It will invoke nostalgia, envy, awe, and every raw emotion capable of the human condition. Five seconds. Should they make many copies? Surely everyone in the family would be interested in having a piece of history. Four seconds. The Dogs begin to stir. Three seconds. GET OUT OF THE BACK YARD NO! Two seconds. BAD DOG NO! One second. Done.
I can’t get enough out of this photo. It cracks me up! The human subject is my great-grandmother whose name was a mouthful but she went by an adorably masculine-diminutive nickname. Maybe she owned the two dogs, Good Dog and Bad Dog. It was taken somewhere on the westside of Cleveland, Ohio although it seems impossibly rural. I wish I knew the name of the brilliant photographer. Perhaps it was her brothers or husband. I can feel the pride and determination from it. My ancestors must have had a good sense of humor to keep it for 100+ years. Sadly, nobody took the time to label the back of the photo for me. Remember—if you don’t label your photos, someday your great-grandaughter will put it on the internet and write about you!
Archivists have some fancy tools at our disposal for identifying and dating photographs. Many of us with library or public history degrees have taken graduate level courses on the history of photographs. These classes concentrate on different processes, from daguerreotype to Polaroids. We learn best ways to preserve each type. Some archivists specialize in photographs and become experts in their care and description.
Luckily, there are some easy tools that we can use to give photographs a circa date. When I see an “old” photograph, there are three main piles I can place it in: a cased photograph will always land itself in the 19th century; color photographs get an after 1941 date (at the earliest with some rare exceptions--I’m looking at you, Cyanotypes!); and then we have plain ol’ black and white from the 1880s to about the 1950s. Seventy years is a long time! This is where visual clues come into play.
Let’s take a closer look at this Frisky Dog photo. The woman’s dress is a big giveaway. The Dowager Countess of Grantham would wear this dress so the 1920 is a hard cap date. To date a style of clothing, google really is your best friend! I like to narrow things by decade and search “dress style 1910” and compare it to “dress style 1920” and “dress style 1900.” While location and the sartorial bravery of your ancestors may skew the date a little bit, for many American heirloom photos this may be a good starting point! What about that wagon? While the Model T was introduced in 1908, it didn’t replace every wagon and horse in the country. Architecture experts and local history sleuths could help pinpoint location based on the home in the background which could give you a firm “not before” date. Wikipedia may not be the best to cite in an academic paper but it is an amazing resource when you need to know when the overhead power line was put into commercial use. If you’re lucky, you may be able to narrow the date with two or three clues within the photo.
For this particular photograph, the photo itself is a HUGE clue. It isn’t in a studio and while my great-grandmother’s hand is a little wonky, she isn’t an entirely blurry figment. Kodak’s introduced the Brownie camera in 1900 (with a second, more popular version introduced in 1901) and with that gave the world an affordable way to create snapshots. Amateur photographers could document their lives outside of weddings and formal portrait sessions. Snapshot really is the perfect word--an instant of a life lived long ago. Gone in a snap. The Brownie took about seven seconds of exposure time to create an image.
My great-grandmother was born in 1886 and married at the age of 21. I can’t see her clearly but she seems to be in her mid-20s making 1910 a pretty good circa date! She doesn’t seem posed or camera-ready, so assuming that a mid-20s woman could likely stand still for seven seconds, Great-Grandma likely just happened upon this weird scene created by an amateur photographer with a Brownie.
Of course, there is an exception to every rule, especially in archival documents! Maybe the subject dressed in costumes. Maybe they wore culturally different clothing than what will easily come up in a pinterest search. Maybe they only had antiques in their home or refused the introduction of electricity in their home. Take an educated guess, it’s better than nothing! I would encourage anyone to go ahead and go down that rabbit hole. Make it a project and head down to your local library and see what new things you can learn. When in doubt, ask the archivists!