Tag: Fashion

Our Darlings Rest Amongst the Flowers that Bloometh Over There

Mourning images from my collection.

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In this early 1/4th-plate daguerreotype, taken about 1845, a sad, proud widow peers at us through what seems to be a hole in time.
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The sitter wears a white widow’s cap, a hair mourning brooch, and jet bracelets. The back of the plate has the inscribed numbers “48-36-42,” the meaning of which is unknown. This 1/6th-plate daguerreotype dates to circa 1855.
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This hand-tinted 1/9th-plate Ambrotype was created in about 1858. The beautiful woman so stunningly colored by the photographer is almost certainly not a widow as are the two ladies above. Widows, even in deepest mourning, wore white crape caps, bonnet ruches, or other touches of white, to indicate their status.

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Like a Rainbow: Resurrecting Mary Avery White Forbes

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Mary Avery White Forbes, colorized daguerreotype from the Jesse Cress Collection.

This glorious colorization by Sanna Dullaway returns vividly to life Mary White Avery Forbes, a 19th Century denizen of Westborough, Worcester County, Massachusetts. Her birth was recorded on 12 March, 1813, in Roxbury, to William White (1779-1848) and his wife Nancy Avery (1783–1865). In Mary’s time, Roxbury was already an ancient settlement first colonized by the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630; it is now one of the 23 official neighborhoods of Boston.

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The original 1/6th-plate daguerreotype of Mary Forbes, Circa 1848, from the Jesse Cress Collection.

Mary’s future husband, Daniel Hall Forbes, born 5 September, 1808, in Westborough, was the son of Jonathan Forbes (1775-1861) and Esther Chamberlain (1770-1867). According to the 1892 Forbes and Forebush Genealogy: The Descendants of Daniel Forbush, Jonathan Forbes “always resided in the Forbes homestead, West Main Street…. He taught school when a young man. He was a captain as early as 1813, when he was elected deacon of the Evangelical Church, holding the latter office 48 years. He held most of the town offices and was a natural leader in church and town affairs. It is said he was always chairman of every committee in which he served.” The genealogy also notes, “His children, Susannah, Julia, Jonathan, Jr., and Daniel were all baptized Oct. 29, 1808.”

The group baptism was a sign of commitment to Christianity that the Forbes family kept alive for multiple generations. When he died more than four decades later, Daniel, the month-old infant christened that day, would leave hundreds of dollars to missionary societies. His daughter would die in a far away country, serving God’s cause.

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Preternaturally Lovely: Britain’s Queen Alexandra of Denmark

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Albumen carte de visite (CDV) of future Queen Alexandra when Princess of Wales, taken at Sandringham in 1863. This image was marketed by the London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company, 54 Cheapside and 110 Regent Street. There is also a sticker on CDV’s reverse: “Juvenile Book Depot and Passport Agency, C. Goodman, bookseller and stationer, 407 Strand.” Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.
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Princess Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia of Denmark as a young woman, circa 1860. She was born 1 December, 1844, in the Yellow Palace in Copenhagen, the daughter of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (later King Christian IX of Denmark) and Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel. Her upbringing was not extravagant and she remained close to her parents and siblings, even after marrying Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and taking up her new life in Great Britain. Library of Congress.
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September 1862: A group photograph to mark the engagement between the Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra. Included are members of the Princess’s family including Prince Christian of Denmark, later King Christian IX; Princess Louise, later Queen of Denmark; Leopold, Duke of Brabant; Marie Henriette, Duchess of Brabant; and Princess Dagmar of Denmark. According to an 1879 issue of the magazine Harpers Bazaar, “A younger generation are fond of recalling the April morning when the young Princess of Wales reached England. The boat touched the shore, and the multitude crowding the quay saw a mere slip of a girl nervously clinging to the railing on the deck, and looking with a pale, pretty face at the new country, her dress plain almost to shabbiness, and her bonnet of so old-fashioned a make that a London milliner was hurriedly telegraphed to for a more lilting head-gear for the future queen’s entry into London. A wave of applause and cheers went up as the Prince of Wales embraced his betrothed and conducted her to the shores of her new home. The same day she was driven through London in great state, and a lady near enough socially to be good authority has told us of her pretty, girlish timidity when the crowd stared at her, with cheers and wild demonstrations of delight.” Courtesy Royal Collection.

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Those I Know Not

A selection of vintage images from my collection featuring sitters whose identities, sadly, are unknown.

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An English matriarch sits resplendent for this tinted 1/6th-plate daguerreotype, circa 1849. It is likely by Beard’s Photographic Institute, London and Liverpool, which was run by Richard Beard (22 December 1801–7 June 1885). Beard enthusiastically protected his business through photographic patents and helped establish professional photography in the United Kingdom. He opened his London and Liverpool studios in 1841. Clouds were frequently painted in as a backdrop by his studio staff.
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A woman wearing spring fashions uses a finger to mark her place in a book in this 1/6th-plate American daguerreotype, circa 1852. Perhaps she wanted to imply that she had been reading outdoors.
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I title this American, circa-1858, 1/6th-plate ambrotype “A Man, His Hair, and His Wife.” The husband has a feminine beauty, especially with the delicate tinting of his cheeks. His wife, brooding, intense, and potentially vengeful, may be wearing a large mourning brooch.
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This early English, 1/4th-plate ambrotype features a Victorian teen who could be a character in a Dickens’ novel. She points to an illustration in a book, but I cannot decipher the title or the meaning of her gesture. The image was taken in about 1852.
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As photography matured, it became possible to make copies of early, singular photographic images. In the 1890s, this cabinet card was created of a daguerreotype taken in about 1855.

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All images copyright the Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.

Easters Ago

As the Northern Hemisphere explodes with green life, let’s take a look back at rebirth celebrations of yesteryear.

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A beautiful early Easter image, probably 1890s.
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The 1898 5th Avenue Easter Parade, New York City, New York. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
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Children at the 1898 White House Easter Egg Roll. Courtesy Library of Congress.

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Patterns of Time

Vintage Patterns Wikia has released a catalog of more than 83,000 vintage sewing patterns. Costuming enthusiasts can use the reference numbers to search for extant patterns on sites like eBay.

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Elite Styles Company, September 1922.
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Pictorial Printed Patterns, October 1931.
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Praktische Damen-und Kinder-Mode No. 26; 1935-36.

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This is His Orphan: What it Shows and What it Doesn’t

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Widow and Orphan, Albumen Carte de Visite, Circa 1868. Ann Longmore-Etheridge Collection.

This English carte de visite (CDV) is one of the most popular in my collection, if Flickr views and Pinterest re-pins equate to evidence, that is. It shows a young British widow—identifiable as such by the white ruching on her black bonnet—squatting in the background, having just propelled her black-clad daughter toward the photographer. The widow stares forward forlornly, her hand over her mouth, indicating without words her shock and concern for their future. It is a candid, painfully honest pose, and one rarely seen in types of images. She is no “Hidden Mother,” but a vital element of a tableau meant to convey the message, “This is his orphan.”

The reverse stamp on the CDV reads “T. Bennett, Photographer, 46 Foregate Street and Church Street, Malvern.” According to research conducted by the creator of Photographers of Great Britain and Ireland, 1840-1940, Thomas Bennett “opened his first studio in Worcester in 1856. At different times, he operated at five studios in Worcester and three in Malvern under his own name and the business continued under the name of Bennett & Son and Bennett & Sons until at least 1916.”

“The 1861 census records the [Bennett] family living at his shop at 46 Foregate, Worcester, where he is described as a Lay Clerk (of the church) and photographer. His firm Thomas Bennett and Son is thought to have been established about 1856. His branch in Great Malvern was possibly the second photographic studio” in that town—this information gleaned from the Malvern Records Office. Bennett threw open the doors of his Malvern studio in 1868 and the CDV of mother and daughter could not have been taken long afterward.

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